THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 




MARIE DE ROHAN, DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

[From a picture jiainted in Lorraine in 1627, and now in the Versailles Museum) 



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A LIFE OF INTRIGUE AND ADVENTURE 
IN THE DATS OF LOUIS XIII 



BY 

LOUIS BATIFFOL 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 
DODD MEAD & COMPANY 



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Printed in England 



INTRODUCTION 

It may appear a somewhat bold undertaking, after the 
publication of Victor Cousin's highly valued work {Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 1862), to write a life of the Duchesse de 
Chevreuse. But I have ventured to treat the subject afresh, 
because it has appeared to me that Victor Cousin was 
unacquainted with a number of documents which throw a 
new light on the life-story of Cardinal Richelieu's famous 
opponent; that he did not, perhaps, extract all the advan- 
tage he might have gained from the texts published in the 
Appendix to his work — texts of which, in some cases, fuller 
and more extensive copies exist than those of which he 
has made use ; and finally, because, swayed by scruples far 
removed from those which affect the rights of the historical 
critic, he thought himself bound to soften down certain of 
his heroine's regrettable characteristics, and thus render 
his portrait of her more flattering, 

I have taken all these documents in hand again, I have 
sought out fresh ones, I have made a closer analysis of the 
feelings of Mme. de Chevreuse. And I believe that I have 
thus been able to produce a more life-like impression of 
one of the most representative figures in the aristocracy of 
the seventeenth century. If the theory that one of the chief 
elements of history is to be found in the action of indi- 
viduals — either in solitary instances, and thus ruled by 
the variations of each person's unstable temperament, or 
grouped into crowds, and then swayed by the contradictory 
tides of the collective phenomena produced by "mental 
contagion " — be a true one, such a psychological study as 
that I offer here embodies a more exact contribution to the 



INTRODUCTION 

understanding of a particular period than many a general 
description, even of the most brilliant kind. And this con- 
tribution will be found likewise in the picture drawn of the 
figures that moved in the circle in which Mme. de Chev- 
reuse lived. I have striven to instil life into these figures — 
such as Louis XIII and Richelieu, for instance — and to 
give them their real physiognomies, such as the documents 
consulted show them to have been, and not transformed, as 
we find them in novels, and plays, and legend. The links 
connecting this biography with general history are thus 
of a quite different nature, enlightening, explanatory.^ 
History, which has hitherto been solely occupied with 
wars, negotiations, institutions, and outlines, economic or 
philosophic, must now be applied to the revelation of "the 
life " of past ages, in all its immediate and positive reality. 
Michelet has given us the expression which best fits this 
particular form, he calls it "resurrection." 

The objection advanced against such "resurrections" is 
that they are fanciful, or "romantic," — the truth, in this 
instance, is at fault, inasmuch as it resembles an imitation 
of itself ! This reproach may be justified when the author, 
untrammelled by the discipline of science, thinks he must 
add the suggestions of his own capricious fancy to texts 
which he considers insufficient. But the duty of the 
historical critic is, on the contrary, to restrict the part 
played in his work by conjecture within the severest limits, 
and to seek out, select, and use his documents in sufficient 
numbers to enable him, with their help alone, to trace the 
succession of events, and that in the orderly sequence 
indispensable to the interest inspired by any literary 
composition. 

The form of this work has not permitted me to indicate 
the authorities consulted at the foot of each page. I have 
carefully mentioned, in the course of my narrative, the 
names of the witnesses on whose testimony I have relied : 
a list of my references will be found in the Appendix, and 

vi 



INTRODUCTION 

I have endeavoured, by means of a number of fairly explicit 
quotations, to prove that my descriptions are by no means 
an exaggeration of contemporary opinion. Whatever 
symptoms of "imagination" may appear in certain 
passages of my story, my readers will be forced to admit 
that it faithfully follows the authorities at my disposal. 
Even more than "the art of telling a tale," history must 
be "a method " for the discovery, the criticism, the grouping 
together, of the texts of bygone days. 

L. B. 



vn 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. KAGE 

I MARIE DE ROHAN : DUCHESSE DE LUYNES I 

II THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 28 

III BUCKINGHAM 54 

IV THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 86 

V THE EXILE IN LORRAINE : THE PASSION OF 

CHATEAUNEUF I18 

VI THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 1 56 

VII IN ENGLAND : MADAME DE CHEVREUSE AND 

RICHELIEU 193 

VIII THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII : THE RETURN OF 

MADAME DE CHEVREUSE 224 

IX AMIDST THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 262 

X RETIREMENT AND DEATH 303 

INDEX 337 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

To face jiage 

MARIE DE ROHAN, THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

(From a. picture painted in Lorraine in 1627, and now in ike 
Versailles Museuni) 

Frontispiece 

ANNE OF AUSTRIA 1 8 

(From a picture hy Rubens in the Louvre Museum) 

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM 60 

(From a picture by Rubens in the Pitti Palace, Florence') 

THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE I08 

(From a painting in the possession 0/ the Due de Vendome, ana 
now at Belmont Castle) 

THE CHATEAU DE COUZIERES, NEAR MONTBAZON IN 

TOURAINE 156 

THE COURT OF CHARLES I OF ENGLAND AT GREEN- 
WICH 196 

(From a picture attributed to Janssen in the Royal Collection at 
Buckingham Palace) 

THE DUC DE CHEVREUSE 2l8 

(From a contemporary painting in the Museum at Blois) 

THE CHATEAU DE DAMPIERRE AT THE BEGINNING 

OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 304 

(From an engraving by d' Androuet du Cerceau) 



CHAPTER 1 

MARIE DE ROIL^N : DUCHESSE DE LUYNES 

The Due de Montbazon— Marie de Rohan Montbazon : her childhood, 
her character — Her marriage to the Due de Luynes— Anne of 
Austria — Influence of the Duchess on the Queen— Madame de 
Luynes disturbs the peace of Louis XIII — Her disgrace — 1600-22. 

Towards the middle of the nineteenth century there still 
stood in the city of Paris, at the corner of the Rue de 
I'Arbre Sec and the Rue de Bethizy, an ancient dwelling, 
the elegant decorations of which, defaced though they were, 
proved it to have been the home, in bygone days, of some 
important family. At the end of a courtyard to which the 
action of the weather had imparted a shabby and sorry- 
looking air, there rose a brick-built facade, with stone chain- 
courses, crowned by a sharply pointed roof; the windows 
(those on the ground floor were grated) were flanked, on the 
upper floors, by pilasters adorned with Ionic capitals. The 
house dated from the Renaissance period. The property, 
in the sixteenth century, of Antoine du Bourg, Chancellor 
of France, and let, at a later date, to Admiral de Coligny, 
who was murdered within its walls on St. Bartholomew's 
Day, August 24, 1572; it was purchased, in 1617, by a 
prominent nobleman, Hercule de Rohan, Due de Mont- 
bazon, Peer of France and Grand Veneur to His Majesty. 
Sauval tells us that M. de Montbazon had the whole edifice 
repaired and redecorated, that he caused the words " Hotel 
de Montbazon " to be set over the door in letters of gold; 
that within its walls he displayed an excessive luxury. The 
somewhat moderate proportions of the building, as it 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

appeared before its final demolition in 1853, render any 
explanation of so sumptuous a manner of life somewhat 
difficult. In the days of Louis XIV the house was no more 
than a tavern ; previously to that period it had known some 
palmy days. 

This Due de Montbazon was a great personage, indeed. 
Born of a family whose records — so one of his forefathers 
asserts, in a memorandum drawn up in the days of Henri 
III — covered twelve centuries, which was descended from 
the earliest kings of Brittany, was allied with "the greatest 
monarchs in Europe, and all the greatest princes of 
Christendom," was connected with the rOyal family, and 
had succeeded, for over a thousand years, in transmitting 
"the rank and honour of its original stock and author" 
by direct male descent, M. de Montbazon, with his 
great stature, his imposing air, his broad and energetic 
countenance, was a worthy representative of his race. 
The third son of Louis de Rohan, Prince de Guemene, 
he had become duke on the death of an elder brother, 
in whose favour King Henri III had erected the estate 
of Montbazon into a duchy, and had at the same time 
married that dead brother's young fiancee, Madeleine de 
Lenoncourt. 

His contemporaries all agree in asserting his intelligence 
to have been exceedingly moderate. Especially did they 
consider him brutal in his habits. Bautru, who wrote a 
biting libel on him, crammed with stinging taunts, and 
entitled O^onandre or the Coarse Felloiv, a Satire, turned 
him into utter ridicule, never vouchsafing him any name 
save "Prince of Louts," or "Prince of Bethizy "^an allu- 
sion to his house in the street of that name. To complete 
the picture, M. de Montbazon, like most great gentlemen 
of that epoch, had the morals of a horse-trooper. At a 
later date he was to be accused, when Governor of Paris, 
of going forth in full dress, and attended by mounted 
guards, to "plunge into debauchery." During his visits 

2 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

to Montbazon, his castle on the banks of the Indre, some 
three leagues from Tours, or his still more frequent stays 
at the charming Chateau of Couzieres, close by — a resid- 
ence of which he was particularly fond — he indulged a 
passion for a certain courtesan of Tours, named Louise 
Roger, which supplied the whole province with entertain- 
ment. As a just retribution, his wife, so we are told, was 
constantly unfaithful to him. 

The important position to which he rose is explained 
by the fact that to his name, his title, and his brilliant 
family descent, he added a perfect fidelity to his King, at a 
period when fidelity was a virtue rare indeed. He had 
followed the fortunes of Henry of Navarre. Henri IV, 
when seated on the throne, kept his kindly feeling for him. 
There was a story current in the family that when the 
Dauphin, afterwards to become Louis XHI, was born, 
Montbazon was in the Queen's apartments at Fontaine- 
bleau. The King, issuing from the chamber in which 
Marie de Medicis lay, to present the newly born Prince to 
his assembled courtiers, caught sight of Montbazon, and 
laid the infant in his arms, with the words, " Here's a 
heavy burden ! It needs a Hercules to carry it ! " M. de 
Montbazon was with the King when Ravaillac murdered 
him, in 1610. He continued in the service of Marie de 
Medicis, and defended her in the civil wars which ensued. 
He was employed on confidential missions, and zealously 
performed his duties. 

i.\s a reward, honours were showered upon him. He 
was made the King's Lieutenant in Normandy and his 
Governor in Picardy; in the year 1619 he was appointed 
Governor of Paris and the lie de France, and "Grand 
Veneur" of France shortly afterwards; he was one of the 
foremost noblemen about the Court. 

He married twice. By his first wife, who had been 
betrothed to his brother, and who died in 1602, after four 
years of wedded life, at the age of nineteen, he had two 

3 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

children. Twenty-six years later, when he was sixty, he 
married again. His second wife was "a beauteous damsel," 
so Souvigny tells us, of eighteen, Marie d'Auverjour de 
Bretagne, daughter of Charles, Comte de Vertus, whom 
he carried off from the convent in which the young lady 
had proposed to take her vows ; a magnificent creature, tall 
and full bosomed, with a white skin and black hair, a nose 
a trifle thick and lips a little thin, of imposing presence 
and passionate temperament : the famous jNIadame de 
Montbazon of Anne of Austria's Regency. 

The elder of the two children by the first marriage was 
a boy, Louis VII de Rohan, Prince de Guemene; the 
younger was a girl, and this girl was Marie-Aimee de 
Rohan, destined, by her first marriage, to become Duchesse 
de Luynes, and by her second, Duchesse de Chevreuse. 
Marie-Aimee de Rohan was born in December, 1600, two 
years after her brother, who came into the world on August 
5, 1598. She was given the name borne, in Henri II's 
time, by a great aunt, Marie de Rohan-Guemene, the 
friend of the Constable de Montmorency. She could not 
remember her mother, who died when she was only two 
years old. Her childhood was a neglected one. The 
education she received was not of a nature to inspire any 
predisposition to a virtuous life. 

If it be true that Madeleine de Lenoncourt had been 
unfaithful to her husband before she had reached the age 
of twenty, she thus gave proof of a temperament which 
in her daughter's case was sufficiently strongly developed. 
The father was not in a position to counteract so regret- 
table a tendency by any opposite qualities of his own, and 
Marie de Rohan, thus affected by a double dose of 
hereditary inclination, showed symptoms, at an early age, 
of a fascinating gift of coquetry, and an alarming lightness 
of behaviour. Brought up in the house of a parent who 
certainly never thought of giving her good advice, even 
when he was not actually setting her a bad example, left 

4 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

to the care of governesses who possessed no authority- 
over her, she had nobody about her to correct any of the 
dubious tendencies of her nature. Between Couzi^res, 
whither she often went, and Paris, which was her real 
home, she led a life that was little short of being quite 
independent, a life of pleasure, caprice, and liberty of 
every kind. 

As a comrade she had her brother. In later years they, 
were to go to law; as children the understanding between 
them was excellent. Short of stature, ugly, with the small 
grimacing face of a shortsighted creature trying to see 
things clearly, short irregular features, and twisted at that, 
Gu^m^ne was far from attractive-looking : somebody de- 
clared he looked like a professional "tooth-drawer." But 
he was exceedingly witty. Everything he said was 
amusing. Marie de Rohan, who loved to laugh and scoff, 
got on well with a brother so perfectly suited to her taste : 
they were never apart. Tallemant des R^aux tells us that 
people were "astonished that the son and daughter of 
M. de Montbazon should have so much wit I " 

Thus Marie de Rohan grew up, a spoilt child, in an 
atmosphere of careless gaiety. Such things as principles 
and prejudices she hardly possessed. Yet she was the 
true daughter of her century. She was fully conscious of 
the position occupied by her family, and that to which her 
father had attained ; she knew what was her own due, and 
was never to forget who she was. But considerations of 
honour were never to stand in her way. Her religious 
sentiments, we shall see, were those suitable to a woman of 
her rank, and they were sincere ; but religion was not 
destined to restrain her actions, any more than honour. 

In early girlhood she revealed her possession of the 
charms which were to have such enduring power. She 
was pretty, full of refinement and distinction. Her small 
face, the purest oval, possessed the delicate and aristocratic 
features peculiar to an ancient and court-bred race. The 

5 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

tempting scarlet lips of her well-modelled mouth offer us 
some explanation of the passionate adorations she inspired. 
The wide-open and sensitive nostrils betrayed their owner's 
inheritance of the maternal temperament. Beneath a 
smooth forehead and widely opened golden eyelashes, the 
eyes, above all, drew others to them- — eyes that had a 
certain reserve in them, a mysterious power of penetration, 
too, youthful, full of life, haunting and spiritual, at once 
scornful and captivating. Her hair was fair and silky, 
her figure slight, supple, not over tall, but well propor- 
tioned : altogether a very graceful, refined, and feminine 
being. 

Wherever she went Marie de Rohan stirred innumerable 
hearts to love. Old and young, noblemen, bourgeois, 
peasants, every man who approached her fell under the 
charm. She wrote of herself, "I believe I am fated to be 
the object of the madness of unreasonable men ! " It was 
as though she sent forth some heady perfume that had 
the gift of disturbing even the staidest heart. For a 
moment it even overcame Louis XIII and Richelieu. A 
wondrous power of fascination ! Few women of the seven- 
teenth century have wielded so far-reaching and decisive an 
influence over their contemporaries ! 

She was quite aware she possessed it, and made no 
attempt to lessen its power. We shall see her give 
herself up to her love affairs with a sort of amused and 
careless indifference. The fact is that she was exceedingly 
good-natured. And she delighted, besides, in loving and 
in being loved. It mattered little to her whether the object 
of her passion were always the same or not : as long 
as he was in possession, she was faithful to her chosen one. 
"It was not difficult," said one who knew her well, "to 
impose any particular lover upon her, but once she had 
accepted him, she loved him solely and faithfully. She 
once acknowledged to Mme. de Rhodes and to myself 
that by some caprice of fortune, as she thought it to be, 

6 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

she had never loved the person best whom she had es- 
teemed the most, except, she added, in the case of her poor 
Buckingham. In spite of a devotion to her passion, 
which may be called eternal, though its object was occa- 
sionally changed, a whim here and there would turn her 
thoughts aside. But back she always came, and that with 
a transport which made her slip appear delightful." 

And then Marie de Rohan delighted in fun. Wherever 
she went she left behind her the fascinating memory of a 
joyous being. Her cheerfulness vanquished the dreariness 
of the most gloomy surroundings. "She makes our Court 
so merry," writes Lord Montague from London, in 1638, 
to the Commandeur de Souvre, "that you w'ill find it no 
less pleasing than that of Turin." Her lively conversation, 
full of quick repartee, proved an activity of mind 
which was often remarked by Richelieu, whom she 
drove to despair. Petted wheresoever she chose to go — 
at Court, to begin with, in the earlier days, before Riche- 
lieu's time, at all events; then in Lorraine, where she was 
treated like a queen ; and in London, above all, where the 
royal family, Charles I and his Queen Henrietta-Maria, 
could not bear her out of their sight, and where all the 
English lords vied with one another in offering her proofs 
of their admiration, Marie de Rohan was everybody's 
delight. One understands how Fontenay-Mareuil came to 
write of her, " Nothing was really impossible to a woman 
of her beauty and her wit." 

Was her judgment sound ? The numerous letters she 
has left us, scrawled in an untidy and crabbed hand, 
do not cast much light on the point. They show us a 
nature that must have been sincere, self-contained, reserved, 
somewhat precise and cold, as a rule, in business matters ; 
and never very warm-hearted. Mme. de Chevreuse wrote 
a " Discourse on Love," which still lies in the manuscript ; 
its text, which is brief enough, is no more than a vague 
commentary on Montaigne : we learn nothing from it. 

7 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Our best means of knowing her is to follow her in her 
intrigues. 

"An active and restless mind," says Monglat; "more 
clearly convicted of factiousness than any lady in the 
kingdom," declares Retz, Mme. de Chevreuse made 
intrigue the favourite occupation of her whole life. No 
other person has excelled her in the art of inventing com- 
plications, spreading them abroad, tangling them together, 
and rendering them so formidable as to end, thanks to 
her external relations and the personal charm she exercised 
over sovereigns and statesmen, in creating those political 
dangers which cost the Cardinal de Richelieu many an 
anxious thought. The author of a Mazarinade, which 
appeared in the year 1652, ''La Verite pronongant ses 
Oracles/' gives us the following outline of the activities 
of Mme. de Chevreuse: "Everybody knows she has 
given the first impulse to many great movements, and has 
been the moving intelligence of several great designs; 
the unhappy thing is that not one that is good has been 
ascribed to her. She is said to be exceedingly busy, but 
she never sets anything on a sure foundation ; she is said 
to be very clever at tangling the skein of an intrigue, but 
she never can unravel any. She is said to be very clever 
at finding her way out of a labyrinth, but never does it 
without first of all getting herself into another. She is 
said to be a thorough marplot, and that says everything ! " 
The conclusion the writer draws is that Mme. de Chev- 
reuse was a person of incautious and meddling disposition, 
and this estimate is fairly justified by facts. 

But the author is mistaken on one point — when he 
ascribes the activity of Mme. de Chevreuse to a regard for 
her personal interest. St. Simon, too, has said : "Intrigue, 
obedient to the star of the House of Rohan, served this 
family's interests." Mme. de Chevreuse was not an inter- 
ested person. Mme. de Motteville, who saw a great deal 
of her, thought her rather absent-minded than otherwise, 

8 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

full of fancies, and ruled by passion rather than by 
reason. Marie de Rohan was neither selfish nor ambitious. 
She intrigued her whole life long, but it was to amuse 
herself, and serve the cause of those she loved. " I have 
heard her say herself," continues Mme. de Motteville, 
"that no ambition had ever touched her heart, and that 
she had followed her own pleasure — that is to say, that 
she had interested herself in worldly affairs solely out of 
consideration for the persons who had been dear to her." 
Retz went still further, saying: "If the Duchesse de 
Chevreuse had been born into the world in a century when 
there had been no affairs of state, it would never have 
entered her head that such things existed." It may well 
be that in other and calmer times Mme. de Chevreuse 
might have spent her energies on peaceful and beneficent 
undertakings. But living as she did at a period when her 
social position and her relations with royalty enabled her 
to exercise a certain political influence, and being by her 
nature "fond of gallantry, lively, bold and enterprising," 
she was in a position, as La Rochefoucauld tells us, "to 
use all her charms in the endeavour to ensure the success 
of her plans " : she did attempt it. Unfortunately she 
harmed all the causes and all the persons she tried to 
serve. "There was no peace in France," writes Mazarin, 
"until she had left it." The continuous effort such an 
existence presupposes makes its insignificant results 
appear small indeed in proportion. 

She had hardly reached her seventeenth year when her 
father, who was anxious to get her off his hands, cast about 
for a husband for her. A lucky chance was to bring her a 
marriage at once brilliant, wealthy, and unexpected. 

It was just at this m.oment — in 1617 — that Louis XIII, 
having put an end to his mother's Regency by the execu- 
tion of Concini, had taken the reins of government into his 
own hands. His favourite, at that moment, was Honor^ 
d'Albert, shortly to become Due de Luynes. M. de 

9 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Luynes was a young gentleman of modest extraction, from 
the Comtat Venaissin, who had reached his thirty-ninth 
year, and owed his somewhat sudden rise in life to the 
lively attachment with which he had inspired Louis XIII. 
The King had showered honours upon him. He had 
carried his affection to the length of desiring to make a 
marriage between him and his own natural sister, Mile, de 
Vendome. But the lady had refused, not considering 
M. de Luynes a suitor worthy of her: she had set her 
mind on marrying the Due du Maine. Luynes, timid by 
nature, alarmed by her resistance, and fearing he might* 
draw on himself the enmity of the Vendome family and 
of the Due du Maine, conceived the idea of getting out of 
his delicate position by marrying somebody else as soon 
as he could manage it. And then it was that he cast his 
eyes on Marie de Rohan. She was a most attractive 
creature. Her family, said to be very rich, was one of the 
greatest in the kingdom. Louis XIII gave his consent. 
The Comte de Montguyon was despatched to ask for the 
young lady's hand. M. de Montbazon had not a moment's 
hesitation. His private affairs had fallen into confusion. 
The objection that M. de Luynes came of a family far less 
illustrious than his own was largely counterbalanced by 
the prospect of the numberless advantages that should 
accrue to Marie de Rohan and her kinsfolk from the 
honour of being allied to the King's favourite. Day by 
day, the young wife's position would rise higher, as M. de 
Luynes' favour with the King waxed greater. The father 
agreed, the daughter made no objection. In those days, 
and in such great families as those of which I write, 
difference of age was held to be of no importance. 

The marriage contract was discussed. M. de Mont- 
bazon promised everything he was asked : a dowry of 
200,000 livres — ^the lawyers agreed that he should pay 
50,000 livres down the night before the wedding, 100,000 
more a year later, and the rest in another two years, with 

10 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

interest on all unpaid sums, and a yearly income of 10,000 
livres, as well, to be taken out of the fortune of the bride's 
mother and grandmother. From the reports of a lawsuit 
brought by Mme. de Chevreuse against her father, some 
thirty years later, we learn that M. de Montbazon never 
paid either the 200,000 Iwres or the promised interest, and 
that Marie's share of her mother's and grandmother's 
fortune did not reach the sum of 10,000 livres a year. But 
M. de Luynes was not very particular. And besides, com- 
plications of this sort were common enough in great 
families, in those days. The arrangements for the 
ceremony were made. 

Before it was celebrated, M. de Luynes bestowed a first 
proof of his own favour on Marie. He himself was not 
to become a duke and peer till 1619. According to the 
custom of the Court of France, Mme. de Luynes, being 
married to a man of no more than gentle birth, had 
no right to a seat in the Queen's presence, whereas 
duchesses, and even the daughters of the other branches 
of the House of Rohan, could claim a tabouret. Luynes 
induced the King to decide that his bride should enjoy the 
same privilege as that possessed by the other ladies of the 
Rohan family — that of the tabouret, in fact — and that she 
should preserve it after she became his wife. No protest 
was raised, and M. de Montbazon was delighted. 

There was no grand wedding. On Monday, September 
II, in the Queen's apartment in the Louvre, and in the 
presence of the King and a few- of the gentlemen about 
the Court, the betrothal ceremony was performed and the 
blessing pronounced, by the Archbishop of Tours, Bertrand 
d'Eschaux. Two days later, on Wednesday the 13th, the 
marriage properly so called was celebrated at five o'clock 
in the morning, in the presence of a small company of 
witnesses, in the Queen's Chapel at the corner of the old 
Louvre, on the side looking towards the Pont Neuf. Louis 
Xni, who had risen at half-past three o'clock in the 

^i 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

morning, went to Luynes' chamber to fetch him, and con- 
ducted him to the chapel, where the couple were united by 
that same Archbishop of Tours. In the evening the bride- 
groom gave a great supper, and then departed with his 
young wife to the chateau of Lesigny-en-Brie. 

L6signy-en-Brie, an ancient turreted dwelling, formed 
part of the spoils snatched from Eleonora Galigai, the 
wife of Concini, and Luynes had succeeded in obtaining 
possession of it only a few weeks previously. He was 
very much pleased with the property, he was to make great 
improvements in it, and spend so much money upon it 
that public opinion was to accuse him of having wasted 
the treasure of the State in the process. He little dreamt, 
when he took the new Mme. de Luynes there, that within 
thirty years, and in the course of civil wars which she 
would have partly stirred, his house was to be burnt down, 
with all the papers and correspondence that would have 
been so precious to the historian ! 

In Paris M. de Luynes bought his wife the Hotel de la 
Vieuville, built by the architect Clement M6t^zeau in the 
Street of St. Thomas du Louvre, on the site of the present 
Place du Carrousel. He paid 175,000 livres for it, enlarged 
and beautified it; in later days it was to become the Hotel 
de Chevreuse. 

As the wife of M. de Luynes, Marie de Rohan might 
aspire to an exceptional position at Court. She was 
appointed Superintendent of the Queen's Household. 
Thus did Anne of Austria and the future Mme. de Chev- 
reuse — whose lives were to be so closely mingled for well- 
nigh half a century — first meet, and meet for their own 
misfortune. 

Their age was the same — both were seventeen. Slight, 
of middle height, with beautiful, rather short-sighted eyes, 
quantities of fair hair that waved and curled, a fair white 
skin, a small and "ruddy" mouth, Anne of Austria, so 
it was said, was "one of the most beautiful women of her 

12 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

century." This, no doubt, was an exaggeration, for her 
nose was thick, her eyes were a Httle too big, and her 
complexion was not satisfactory. But the shape of her 
face was exquisite, her brow well modelled, her figure 
charming. In the matter of intelligence she was less well 
provided ; though she was not a fool, her mind lacked 
flexibility ; she said little, and her ideas were few and far 
between. Indolent and lazy like the Spaniard she was, 
with enough love of admiration to make her play with 
fire, if not to expose her to the risk of letting it burn her, 
she was a child, full of easy and passive carelessness, 
always ready to laugh, rather superficial, and anything but 
decided in character. Marie de Rohan, "pretty, roguish, 
and lively," as Tallemant des Reaux tells us, possessed 
every quality best calculated to exercise the most detestable 
influence on the young Queen, whom her impetuous gaiety 
and passionate eagerness completely led astray. 

The first meeting was chilly. Anne of Austria disliked 
M. de Luynes. She had, so she told the English Ambas- 
sador, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, "every possible reason 
for hating him." She endured the presence of the 
favourite's wife against her own will, and solely because 
the King insisted upon it. Similarity of age and senti- 
ment was to bring about an understanding, the under- 
standing was to end in liking, and that was to grow into 
friendship. Marie de Rohan spent all the resources of her 
fertile mind on the work of attracting the regard of the 
princess in whose service she was destined to live. She 
offered her endless proofs of attention to her wishes, gave 
suppers for her, took an active part in the ballets in which 
the sovereign danced ; above all, she kept her amused with 
her merry and frivolous talk. We have some knowledge 
of the nature of this talk. It was improper beyond all 
bounds. Mme. de Luynes' education, combined with her 
own natural predisposition, had given the young wife a 
strong taste for coarse conversation and coarse stories. At 

13 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

a later period, when Chalais was under trial and cross- 
examination, he asserted, with some severity, it may be, 
that "All the said lady's conversation turned on licentious 
acts, giggling tales, gallantries, and taking God's Name in 
vain." At the very best, Mme. de Luynes was caught 
giving the Queen immoral books to read. All these pranks 
amused Anne of Austria. She was sorry for it afterwards. 
She told Mme. de Motteville that she "did not then know 
the danger of living in the society of persons filled with 
passion and vanity." But by degrees an intimacy sprang 
up between the Queen and her Superintendent, which wa^ 
all the closer because Anne of Austria— and she was much 
blamed for it — somewhat distant and haughty in her treat- 
ment of the ruck of her courtiers, admitted those who 
formed her more immediate circle to a familiarity which 
was considered excessive. 

Favours, grants, dignities, all these things soon proved 
the Queen's affection for her Superintendent. It was in 
December, 1618, that Mme. de Luynes had been appointed 
"Superintendent of the Queen's Household and Purse, 
and Head of her Council," — she was just eighteen. Her 
office carried great prerogatives with it : she gave all the 
orders within the Queen's apartments, all the officers of 
the Household made their oaths of fealty to her, she 
handed the sovereign her napkin at dinner, "held her pin- 
cushion, handed her shift, waited on the Queen at table, in 
her coach, within her lodging,"— all the privileges, in fact, 
known as "the honours." The Lady of Honour — next in 
rank to the Superintendent, and who in this case was no 
other than the Duchesse de Montmorency, widow of the 
Constable, a respectable lady of fifty — objected to having 
a child who was not even a Duchess put over her head, 
made a protest, and retired from Court : she was allowed 
to go. The Queen was to bestow many another public 
mark of her affection on Mme. de Luynes. 

Sixteen months after her marriage, Marie de Rohan 

14 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

brought a daughter into the world. Her wish was to 
betroth her at once to some great personage. Anne of 
Austria helped her, and together they cast their choice on 
a Prince of the House of Lorraine, M. de Joyeuse, son of 
the Due de Guise. According to the contract, M. de 
Luynes was to give his daughter 600,000 livres, and the 
Due de Guise was to endow his son with the property 
called Joyeuse, and a yearly income of 25,000 livres. The 
King and Queen bestowed a gift of 100,000 livres upon the 
baby betrothed. The child was too young, and the future 
too uncertain : the marriage was never to become a reality. 

On December 25, 1620, Mme. de Luynes bore a son. 
Anne of Austria watched over her friend the whole night. 
In the morning all the bells began to ring. Louis XHI, 
who was at Calais with M. de Luynes, conveyed the fact 
of his good fortune to the happy father by means of salvos 
of cannon, fired from the castle of the town. He presented 
8000 crowns to the man who brought the news. He gave 
orders that the christening ceremony should be of the 
most splendid kind, and granted a sum of 80,000 francs 
for the purpose. The church in which the rite was per- 
formed, and the Hotel de Luynes, where the subsequent 
festivities were held, were profusely adorned. There were 
banquets and comedies and ballets ; princes, princesses, 
courtiers and great lords, came in their crowds. The King 
stood godfather to the child, Marie de Medicis was his 
godmother, and the ceremonial was that used for a 
Dauphin of France. Seldom, indeed, had any married 
couple been so eminently and publicly favoured — the 
husband by the King, his partner by the Queen. 

Cardinal de Richelieu accuses Mme. de Luynes, in his 
Memoirs, of having abused this favour by her exercise of 
a lamentable influence over the Queen's mind. "She was 
the ruin of the Queen," he says, "whose natural good sense 
was led astray by her bad example," she took possession 
of the sovereign's mind, corrupted it, turned the princess 

15 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

away from the King and her duty to him, and sowed 
dissension between the royal pair ! 

Under a less severe form, Mme. de Motteville formulates 
the same accusation. "The Queen's misfortune," she 
writes, "was that the King did not love her enough, and 
so she was driven to fill her heart by giving it to ladies 
who made a bad use of her aflfection, and who, in her 
earlier years, instead of encouraging her to seek oppor- 
tunities of pleasing him, and trying to gain his esteem, 
separated her from him as much as they could, so as to 
have her more completely under their own influence." , 
Mme. de Motteville seems to lessen Mme. de Luynes' 
responsibility by representing it as shared by other mem- 
bers of the Queen's circle. But Richelieu's reproach still 
holds good, for Mme. de Luynes really was the centre and 
soul of the whole group. 

The group in question was thus composed : Antoinette 
de Luynes, the Duke's sister, married to a certain Barthe- 
lemy du Vernet, and who had been appointed "dame 
d'atour " to Anne of Austria, a young lady of inconsistent 
and superficial character; Mile, de Verneuil, the natural 
daughter of Henri IV, "as scatter-brained a creature as 
any about the Court," according to Tallemant des Reaux ; 
and above all, the Princesse de Conti, Louise Marguerite 
de Lorraine, daughter of that Henri Due de Guise who 
had been murdered at Blois, and widow of the Prince de 
Conti, an extraordinary creature^ — she had reached the age 
of forty-four — the looseness of whose conversation and 
conduct was notorious, who had done much to lead Mme. 
de Luynes into adventures of a sentimental kind, and had 
destroyed any remnant of scrupulous feeling she might 
have preserved. "The Princesse de Conti," wrote Louis 
de Marcillac to Richelieu, with a pen that was far from 
merciful (April 29, 1622), "has acted as the go-between in 
Mme. de Luynes' passing love affairs, which were g^ing 
on during the Constable's lifetime." 

16 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

The Court soon found out that thanks to Mme. de 
Luynes, Anne of Austria's intimate circle was an extremely 
merry gathering, in which the liveliest kind of remarks 
were in vogue. Some of these were whispered, with a 
smile, from ear to ear. The thing grew into a scandal. 
Well-intentioned persons took fright. Corsini, the Nuncio, 
relates in one of his letters that he has been approached 
with a request that he would use his influence with Anne of 
Austria's confessor, to put a stop to the cause of these 
reports. "Many of these ladies, and the chief among 
them," he writes, "live licentiously in the Queen's own 
presence, and, not imposing any restraint on their tongues 
nor their conversations, do not restrict their aspirations 
within the limits of modesty or propriety. I have been 
given to understand that my office demands that I should 
find some means of remedying these disadvantages, so that 
no report of them may reach the King's ears, for this 
might lead him to believe the mischief greater than it 
really is. I have been begged to take such action as will 
show the Queen the danger to which she is exposing her- 
self. And I have resolved to speak of the business to her 
confessor, using, of course, the greatest caution, for I know 
how warily one must touch on certain subjects." This 
intervention bore no fruit. Matters reached such a point 
that M. de Montbazon himself felt it his duty to warn 
Louis XIII that his daughter Mme. de Luynes had given 
the Queen a book entitled Le Cabinet satyrique, ou 
recueil parfait des vers piquants et gaillards de ce temps, 
a volume full of poetry on dubious subjects. Such a 
course of education could not fail to produce its effect in 
the long run on a nature so indolent as Anne of Austria's, 
and so predisposed already to what she herself called "la 
galanterie." 

"The Queen," writes Mme. de Motteville, "made no 
difificulty about telling me that in her young days she did 
not understand why ' la belle conversation ' — what is 
c 17 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

known as ' virtuous gallantry ' into which no private 
attachment enters — could ever be worthy of blame, any 
more than the ordinary conversation of the Spanish ladies 
within the palace. In the person of the Duchesse de 
Luynes she had a favourite w^ho allowed herself to be com- 
pletely absorbed by these foolish amusements. Through 
the entertainments she proposed for the Queen's amuse- 
ment, Mme. de Luynes imbued her, as much as she pos- 
sibly could, with her own propensities to gallantry and 
merriment, and made the most grave and important matters 
serve as food for gaiety and jests." One subject of these 
jests was love. The gay coterie found amusement in other 
people's intrigues, and then, by degrees, arrived at the 
point of finding adorers for Anne of Austria herself. 

Young and pretty as she was, the Queen was more than 
likely to stir passionate attachments. These were pro- 
voked, and encouraged, for the sake of the amusement they 
provided. One of the first was that of the old Due de 
Bellegarde, Grand Ecuyer to the King, a former comrade 
of Henri IV, a very courteous gentleman, full of old- 
fashioned gallantry. Mme. de Luynes and the Princesse 
de Conti filled him with high hopes, and everybody 
laughed, Louis XIII leading the way. Malherbe has left 
us two songs about this love affair. M. de Bellegarde 
was made to look ridiculous. Another passion might have 
had more dangerous consequences — that of the Due de 
Montmorency, the brilliant and attractive nobleman w'ho 
was to die on the scaffold at Toulouse, at the age of thirty- 
seven. He was a fine figure, though he did squint, 
— both elegant and magnificent. And he fell in love 
with the Queen. Luckily for that Princess, his heart was 
also occupied by the fair Marquise de Sable. Anne of 
Austria, aware of this fact, made as though she w^ere not 
conscious of the Duke's attentions to herself. "The 
Queen," w'rites Mme. de Motteville again, "did me the 
' honour of telling me she had never seriously considered 

■ i8 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

the feeling the Due de Montmorency may have entertained 
for her, and she only remarked and accepted what the 
public voice had reported concerning him as a tribute to 
her own beauty, being persuaded that his passion for her- 
self had really been very moderate." In reality it did 
produce some effect upon Anne. Mme. de Luynes and 
the other persons about the Queen soon proceeded to a far 
more -dangerous experiment, that on the Duke of Bucking- 
ham. But, meanwhile, whether wfith her own will or 
against it, Mme. de Luynes was to threaten the peace of 
the royal couple after a very different fashion. 

Cold though he was by temperament, and virtuous by 
principle, Louis XIII was far from being devoid of passion. 
As early as in the month of June, 1617, his courtiers had 
observed that the beauty of one of the Queen's maids-of- 
honour, Mile, de Maugiron, had not failed to attract his 
attention. The King was fond of talking to the damsel, 
and liked to look at her. Anne of Austria took alarm, 
lost no time about finding a husband for her maid of 
honour, and married her as far away as possible, in 
Dauphine, with a dowry of 10,000 crowns. Louis XIII 
said nothing at all. In December, 1618, it became evident, 
to the general surprise, that the King was taking a certain 
interest in Mme. de Luynes. Was he attracted by the 
intoxicating spell the young Duchess cast about her ? Or 
was it out of regard for M. de Luynes that he paid so 
much attention to Marie de Rohan ? The Nuncio Benti- 
voglio asks himself this question in one of his letters, and 
comes to the conclusion that the matter is in no wise 
serious or alarming. But the Queen seemed to be aware 
of the monarch's feelings : they distressed her. In the 
following year, 1619, the Spanish Ambassador, Giron, 
noted that Mme. de Luynes appeared to cause some emotion 
in the King's breast. Louis XIII paid frequent visits to 
his favourite's wife, held lengthy converse with her, 
allowed his eyes to dwell upon her for long moments. 

19 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Anne of Austria, who had noted it too, still held her peace. 
Was her Superintendent playing some coquettish game? 
Had she perceived, provoked, the King's emotion ? Did 
she encourage it? The Queen did not believe it. But 
little by little the monarch's attentions to Mme. de Luynes 
became more evident. Deeply hurt, Anne of Austria 
ended by opening her heart to the Spanish Ambassador. 
The Ambassador communicated the facts confided to him 
to the Court of Madrid. The Queen, he said, was deeply 
affected, and avowed herself "the most unhappy woman 
in the kingdom, the most forsaken and wretched of them 
all." 

The Ambassador tried to calm her fears, assured her 
she exaggerated the state of things, gave her counsels of 
prudence. And yet, not over sure himself, he wrote that 
his suspicions seemed likely to be confirmed. The Nuncio, 
too, grew anxious : his opinion was that the Queen's 
sorrow had its foundation not so much in her jealousy, as 
in her vexation at seeing that the King despised her own 
charms. After some hesitation, he made up his mind to 
speak to the King's confessor, Father Arnoux; but the 
confessor replied that he could answer for the purity of 
the King's intentions. And yet everybody's testimony 
agreed. The Venetian Envoy, Contarini, relates that in 
January, 162 1, when the King came back from Calais, 
after the birth of the Due de Luynes' son, and arrived at 
the Louvre, he paid a most hurried visit to his Queen, and 
then proceeded at once to see the Duchesse de Luynes in 
her apartment, found her in her bed, and kissed the new- 
born baby with a "very tender affection." Constantly, 
after that, Louis XIII was supping with Mme. de Luynes. 
His courtiers related, as a joke, how, during the siege of 
Montauban in 162 1, the King lived with Luynes in the 
somewhat small and inconvenient Chateau of Piquecos, 
and sent the Queen and her suite to Moissac, from which 
place she occasionally came to see him, arriving in the 

20 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

morning and departing again at night. One day, it would 
seem, the Duchesse, who was in attendance on the Queen, 
expressed a wish to remain at Piquecos. "But there is 
no bed!" objected the QueCin. "Oh," repHed Mme. de 
Luynes, heedlessly, we are told, "hasn't the King a bed? " 
Everybody began to talk ! Bassompierre tells us in his 
Journal that the King "had an extreme passion for Mme. 
la Connetable." In reality the story was to come to a 
sudden end. Tallemant des R^aux, who had no friendly 
feeling for Louis XIII, declares the King "never had wit 
enough " to supplant the Due de Luynes in his wife's 
affections. "Yet," he affirms, "everybody would have been 
delighted if he had done it, and she certainly was worth 
the trouble it would have given him." But the King, 
virtuous, timid, and anything but enterprising, would never 
have dared to try. To state the case more precisely, his 
feeling for the Luynes, husband and wife, had undergone 
a change. 

In spite of the commonplace letters of condolence indited 
by Louis XIII on the occasion of the Duke's sudden death, 
in December, 1621, there can be no doubt that the 
favourite's demise preceded a fall which all contemporary 
witnesses coincide in describi'ng as inevitable. Intoxicated 
by the honours the King had consented to shower upon 
him, Luynes, now a Duke and Constable of France, had 
taken on airs of authority which had ended by wearing 
out his master's patience. The sentiment of affection, 
more physical than anything else, which the King had 
felt for his friend, was destined to die out when Luynes 
himself disappeared from his sight. Once he was dead, 
Louis XIII felt a sort of spite and bitterness against his 
former favourite's memory, which had their root partly 
in his displeasure and partly in his sense of humiliation. 
The dead man's family, and the Duchess more especially, 
were destined to suffer from the effects of this angry 
antipathy. 

21 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

In the main, even if the charms of Mme. de Luynes 
had, for a moment, stirred the King's passions, he had 
never felt any esteem for her. Serious-minded and 
thoughtful as he was, he well knew the nature of 
the influence she wielded over his Queen, and the mani- 
festation of his consequent displeasure only awaited a 
favourable moment. Towards the close of the Constable's 
life the relations between his wife and the Due de 
Chevreuse — Prince of Lorraine, and brother of the Prin- 
cesse de Conti — had assumed a most suspicious appearance. 
Louis XIII ventured, one day, in a fit of bad temper, to, 
tell Luynes M. de Chevreuse was in love with his 
wife, and Bassompierre, to whom the King repeated his 
remark, was surprised by the animosity of the tone in 
which the monarch added, "I was very glad to avenge 
myself on her, and cause him discomfort." When Luynes 
lay on his deathbed at Longuetille near Monheurt, on 
the banks of the Garonne, he committed his wife and 
children to the King's kind care, and Louis promised he 
would never forsake them. But once the Constable was 
out of sight his master's real sentiments made themselves 
apparent. 

When the King returned lo Paris, after the campaign 
in the course of which Luynes had died, he did not go to 
see Mme. de Luynes. The young widow was on the 
brink of her confinement; the King sent her word that 
she must quit the Louvre, because it was not proper for 
her to remain there in her condition, — that honour, he 
declared, being reserved for princesses of the blood royal 
only. Remonstrances were addressed to him, and as Mme. 
de Luynes, being Superintendent of the Queen's House- 
hold, must necessarily reside in the Louvre, he consented 
to countermand his order, but forced her to change her 
apartment, and relegated her to a dark and distant corner 
of the palace. She bore a daughter. But the King was 
slow about paying her a visit. " He did not show her any 

22 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

sign of tenderness," writes the Venetian Ambassador. The 
Constable's sister, Mme. du Vernet, had already been 
requested to leave the Louvre. Louis XIII now informed 
Luynes' brothers that they must not show themselves in 
future at the Council Board, and that they, too, must dis- 
appear from the palace precincts : they obeyed. The 
persons known as "the Constable's remains," feeling their 
day was done, went their way in silence. But not so Marie 
de Rohan ! 

Startled for a moment by her disgrace, Mme. de Luynes 
soon regained her courage. One refuge she possessed 
against the King's wrath — Anne of Austria, whose Super- 
intendent she still was. The young Queen, glad in her 
heart to see the Constable depart, clung more than ever 
to her friendship with Mme. de Luynes. She had troubles 
of her own. Her mother-in-law, Marie de Medicis, who 
had been reconciled to the King after his favourite's death, 
had come back, and, with her jealous, domineering, unruly 
temper, was disturbing the peace of the royal couple. It 
was to Mme. de Luynes that Anne poured out her sorrows. 
"The Queen's only consolation," writes Mme. de Motte- 
ville, "was the sympathy the Duchesse de Luynes showed 
her in her troubles." But while she consoled the Queen, 
she also amused her with the usual diversions of her dis- 
sipated circle. There were young gentlemen connected 
with these. The courtiers began to talk again about the 
too great freedom of the Queen's circle, and the far from 
modest conversation that went on around her. Ministers 
took alarm, and requested the Nuncio to speak to Anne of 
Austria's confessor once more. "They have asked me," 
writes the Nuncio, on February 23, 1622, "to convey to 
the Queen Regnant that certain gentlemen of evil life hold 
conversations of so licentious a kind with ladies of her 
court, whose behaviour is no better than theirs, that they 
exceed all the limits of decency and respect, which might 

23 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

have regrettable results, by exposing the Queen to the 
ill-natured tongues of persons of good birth and of her 
people. The desire is that she should get rid of the 
Princesse de Conti, of Mile, de Verneuil, of the Constable's 
widow. I shall endeavour, as dexterously as I may, to 
use her confessor for this purpose." Louis XIII knew all 
about it. His anger against the Duchess grew deeper every 
day. One final incident was to make the storm burst at last. 

At that moment — in March, 1622 — the Queen had hopes 
of shortly giving a Dauphin to France. This was not the 
first time : all her earlier expectations of the kind had been 
disappointed, to the King's great grief. The most extreme 
precautions had been recommended to Her Majesty : she 
was to avoid the smallest imprudence, to take every care 
of herself. Matters were following their normal course, 
and the physicians were reckoning on the longed-for 
success, when the hope of the whole nation was dashed 
once more, and that by the fault of Mme. de Luynes. 

On Monday evening, March 14, 1622, the Princesse 
de Cond6 held a reception after supper — "tenir le lit" 
it was called in those days — in her apartment in the 
Louvre. The Queen, attended by the Superintendent and 
by Mile, de Verneuil, was present at the gathering. The 
entertainment had been a brilliant one, princesses and court 
ladies had been there in numbers. Quite late — it was 
after midnight — Anne of Austria thought of returning to 
her own apartments. She had to cross the great apartment 
on the first floor of the Louvre, then used as a hall, or for 
great banquets, and now known as the Salle Lacaze. At 
one end of this room stood a low platform, upon which, 
on days of great ceremony, the King's throne was placed 
under a dais. Mme. de Luynes was seized with the foolish 
notion of making the Queen run along, with Mile, de 
Verneuil holding one of her arms and the Duchess herself 
the other. When Anne came to the step of the throne, she 
stumbled and fell. A sharp pain seized her, she was put 

24 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

to bed, and two days later, on Wednesday the i6th, the 
"hopes" had meUed into thin air. 

There was great distress at Court. Some of the Ambas- 
sadors came to present their compHments of condolence. 
Nothing was said to the King, who departed to Orleans 
and the South on the following Sunday (Palm Sunday), 
March the 20th. The Queen's indisposition was attributed 
to some ordinary cause. 

But at Orleans, on the 25th, the King had to be told. 
He flew into a violent passion, caused by his disappoint- 
ment as a sovereign and a father, his distress as a husband, 
his annoyance as a ruler. Punishment was to follow 
swiftly. One of the Gentlemen of his Bedchamber, M. de 
la Folaine, was despatched to Paris, bearing three letters : 
one for Mme. de Luynes, one for Mile, de Verneuil, and 
one for the Queen. To Mme. de Luynes the King wrote : 
"Cousin,— Having come to the conclusion that it is neces- 
sary for the good of my service that the Queen's Household 
shall in future be ordered in a manner different from that 
which has obtained in it hitherto, I have decided that this 
cannot be better done than in the form, and by the means, 
which will be notified to you by the Sieur de la Folaine, 
whom I depute to express my will to you." This will was 
that Mme. de Luynes should immediately leave the Court. 
Mile, de Verneuil was dismissed likewise, and made over 
to the charge of the Duchesse d'Angouleme. To the 
Queen, Louis wrote as follows : "The care which it is my 
duty to take, to keep good order in your household, has led 
me to decide on a change which will only bring it greater 
good, as you will recognize in time. I send La Folaine 
to explain my will in this matter to you, and beg you will 
carry it into effect at once, and be as prompt about giving 
me the satisfaction I expect it to bring me, as I believe 
you ready to ensure me that I confidently expect from 
you." Not a word of affection, just a curt note. 

These measures, and above all the form in which they 

25 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

were couched, produced an effect which my readers will 
easily imagine on the Queen and her friends. Anne of 
Austria was deeply offended. "The Queen," writes Mme. 
de Motteville, "who knew herself, and felt herself blame- 
less, considered she had not been treated as she deserved. 
Human pride, always too strong in the heart of the great 
ones of the earth, made her a lenient judge of her own 
cause, and feeling Mme. de Luynes' disgrace to be an 
outrage she herself could hardly endure, she allowed others 
to perceive that she did not realize, as she ought, that to 
a virtuous wife a husband's will must be her immutable^ 
law." Anne of Austria sent her equerry, M. de Putange, 
to Orleans with a letter for the King, expressing her deep 
affliction. She had always, she protested, ordered her 
household in the proper way. She implored the monarch 
to tell her of what fault Mme. de Luynes had been guilty, 
so that she herself might take suitable measures on her 
own account, and she ended by assuring the King that 
in any case she would carry out whatever commands he 
laid upon her. 

Louis XIII, already uneasy about his wife's health, 
grew softer. On March 27, he replied to her letter : 
"I did not intend, when I ordered my sister De Ver- 
neuil and the Conn6table de Luynes to reside outside 
the Louvre, to forbid them to enter it, nor to deprive you 
of the freedom of seeing them." But that was not to 
happen often. Anne sent Putange again, and after him 
M. de Bonneuil, Introducer of Ambassadors, to press her 
request. Louis grew angry. Then the Queen begged 
M. de Montbazon to go to the King, who by this time 
had started for Blois; M. de Montbazon was received with 
downright rudeness. She sent M. de Verneuil, the Due 
de Guise, the Due de Chevreuse. The King lost his 
patience. On April 15th he ordered President Jeannin to 
wait on his Consort and communicate his final decision to 
her. "I am writing to the Queen," said the monarch, "to 

26 



MARIE DE ROHAN 

tell her my will, which is that I absolutely will not allow 
her to see the Connetable de Luynes, except occasionally 
and rarely. To this end you will hand my letter to her, 
and I beg you will give her with it your own wise and 
salutary advice, so that she may conform to my desire in 
every particular." This was the final warning. President 
Jeannin, in the King's name, gave Mme. de Luynes three 
days. If she had not left the Court at their expiration she 
would expose herself to the harshest treatment. There 
was nothing for it but to obey. Anne of Austria bowed her 
head. 

So Mme. de Luynes was driven out ! It was reported 
that her place as Superintendent of the Queen's Household 
was to be taken from her and bestowed on Mme. de Mont- 
morency. Widowed, without helper or support, since the 
Queen herself could not defend her, an object of antipathy 
to the King, who could not bear the sight of her, Marie 
de Rohan seemed to have risen so high, thanks to her 
marriage with the Constable de Luynes, only to fall to the 
lowest depths, in the crash and scandal of her sudden ruin. 
But she was a woman of resource. She did not mean to 
capitulate, she meant to fight, and she was to find means 
to hold her own against the King, and triumph over evil 
fortune ! 



27 



CHAPTER II 

THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

The Guise Family — The Due de Chevreuse — His Marriage with Mme. 
de Luynes — The Duchy of Chevreuse— Dampierre — Return to Court 
— M. and Mme. de Chevreuse and the King of England — The 
Marriage of Charles I and Henrietta-Maria — 1622-25 

Ever since the time, early in the preceding century, when 
a younger son of the reigning House of Lorraine (then a 
German country) had settled in France, to push his fortunes 
there, and, after doing signal service to Frangois the First, 
had been created Due de Guise (his family name had been 
Claude de Lorraine, Due d'Aumale), the prestige and 
power of the House of Guise had risen steadily higher, 
from generation to generation. The eldest of Claude's 
eight sons and four daughters had been that brilliant 
Duke Fran9ois de Guise — a matchless soldier, one of the 
best leaders of the sixteenth century — murdered near 
Orleans, by Poltrot de M6r6. His younger brothers were 
the Cardinals of Lorraine and Guise, both of them valued 
counsellors of the Valois kings. Their sister, Queen 
of Scotland, was the mother of Mary Stuart, married 
to King Francois II of France. So, through Mary 
Stuart's marriage, this younger branch of a foreign house 
became related to the royal family; the Guises of the 
second generation, brothers and uncles of the Queen, 
already stood higher than any of the greatest families of 
France. In the third generation they only just missed 
becoming kings. It was in the memory of all men that 
towards the year 1620, the son of Duke Fran9ois, Henri de 
Guise, the popular hero known as "le Balafr6," who had 

28 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

led the League formed to defend the national religion, at 
that time imperilled by the weakness of the King, had 
attained an authority unequalled in the kingdom, and 
so vigorously maintained the struggle against the sove- 
reign (who was far too much inclined to accept Henri 
de Navarre, the Huguenot, as his successor), that the ques- 
tion of the wisdom on the part of the States-General, of 
calling him to the throne, instead of choosing a Protestant 
King, had been seriously debated. Henri II, in his dread 
of being dethroned, and even put to death, and his alarm 
at the all-powerful position the Duke seemed likely to attain, 
caused him to be murdered at Blois, in 1588. 

Of the five children left by the Due de Guise, the eldest, 
Charles, was a man of very moderate worth; the second, 
Louis, had taken orders, was Cardinal de Guise, and Arch- 
bishop of Rheims, and considered a man of very dubious 
morals- The fourth, Frangois, Chevalier de Guise, was 
to be celebrated during the reign of Louis XHI for his love 
of fighting duels which were lamentably like assassina- 
tions. The daughter was that Princesse de Conti, whose 
reputation was so compromised. The third son was 
Claude de Lorraine, who was first Prince de Joinville, and 
ultimately Due de Chevreuse. 

This Due de Chevreuse was not entirely devoid of good 
qualities. We have a pretty picture of him as a child, 
painted by Leonard Gaultier. The long face, with its high 
and slightly prominent forehead, reminds us of Henri de 
Guise. The countenance is refined and distinguished- 
looking; the lower part well modelled. As a young man, 
the Prince was attractive, charming, well-bred looking. 
As time went on, his face altered. War,, and the habit 
of command, gave him a masculine and energetic air. 
Towards 1622, when he had reached his forty-fifth year, he 
was a good-looking nobleman, powerful in frame, with 
large and pronounced features, the appearance natural to an 
active man. Only the calm eyes and good-natured glance 

29 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

revealed his easy-going nature, ready to accept things as 
they were, full of careless resignation, touched with a 
certain naive simplicity. Gaston d'Orleans used to say 
to Chalais, "M. le Due de Chevreuse is faithless, soft, and 
devoted to his own ease." But he misjudged him. M. de 
Chevreuse, though possessed of what Tallemant des Reaux 
calls "a tolerable wit," was somewhat weak-minded and 
pusillanimous in ordinary life. But on the field of battle, 
he was extremely brave. He had joined the cause of 
Henri IV, after that monarch embraced Catholicism, and 
fought valiantly at his side. Men would quote his exploits 
during the sieges of La Fere and Amiens, during which last 
he had saved the life of the Marechal de Biron, who had 
been surrounded by the enemy, and had brought him back 
to safety, covered, himself, with blood and wounds. "As 
to bravery," says Tallemant des Reaux, "nothing cooler 
was ever seen." When peace was signed, M. de Chevreuse 
went and fought against the Turks. When there were no 
more infidels. Huguenots, or Spaniards for him to run 
through, he fought duels. A first-class swordsman, he was 
well-known for his hot-blooded and quarrelsome ways with 
other men of his own age ; Schomberg, Termes, Somme- 
rive, Saint-Luc, Pompignan, all of them fashionable young 
bloods, and accomplished performers in the Court ballets. 
Over and over again, Henri IV had been obliged to inter- 
fere, and prevent him from going out to fight. As was sure 
to happen to a man of this character, and crowned with such 
a reputation, Claude de Lorraine had won endless favours 
from the tender sex. 

By an unlucky chance, he had principally fallen in love 
with the mistresses of Henri IV — an unfortunate coinci- 
dence. First of all with the Comtesse de Moret; that time 
the King invited him to travel to England, and then sent 
him into quarantine at the Chateau of Marchais, the house 
of his brother, the Duke. Then came the Marquise de 
Verneil ; this time, Chevreuse having only just failed in 

30 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

killing the Due de Bellegarde, one fine evening, in the Rue 
de la Cerisaie, in the Marais, the King, in a fury, talked 
about "cutting his throat." Everybody knew the story 
of Claude de Lorraine's liaison with Mme. de Villars, wife 
of the Governor of the Havre : with Ang^lique Paulet, a 
famous singer of that day : and especially with the 
Marechale de Fervaques, a widow past her first youth, who, 
being exceedingly enamoured of him, allowed him to 
dissipate her fortune on the plea that he had promised 
to marry her. His love affair with Mme. de Luynes was 
to be the decisive one of his life. 

Marie de Rohan and he had seen a great deal of each 
other at Court, meeting in the rooms of M. de Chevreuse's 
sister, the Princesse de Conti. It would have been a 
surprising thing in that easy going society, if Claude de 
Lorraine, accustomed as he was to be kindly treated by 
fair ladies, had not remarked the captivating charm of Mme. 
de Luynes, and dangled about her skirts. Mme. de Conti, 
guessing her brother's feelings, made it easy for them to 
meet. M. de Luynes was still alive. His Duchess, 
dazzled by the prestige and glory of Claude de Lorraine, 
and urged on by Mme. de Conti, granted her lover's prayer. 
We understand what Louis de Marillac meant when he 
wrote to Richelieu that the Princesse de Conti had been the 
go-between in the love-affairs that went on in the 
Constable's lifetime. 

Before long, everybody about the Court was aware of the 
intrigue between Marie de Rohan and M, de Chevreuse. 
The husband, as usual, was the only person who knew 
nothing at all. He and M. de Chevreuse continued on 
the most friendly terms. "I have read M. de Luynes the 
letter you have written him," writes Rucellai' to Chevreuse, 
"and have transmitted the protestations of amity and 
service you make him : he is very much pleased with them, 
and holds you in dear esteem." Louis XHI, as we have 
seen, had ended, in a moment of irritation, by making an 

31 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

allusion to his wife's misconduct in the favourite's pre- 
sence. When Bassompierre ventured to remark to the 
King, in this connection, "that it was a sin to sow dissen- 
sion " between a husband and wife, "in this fashion," the 
monarch replied with a smile, " God will forgive it me, if 
He chooses ! " He knew right well that the secret was no 
secret at all. 

After the death of Luynes, in December, 162 1, the two 
lovers exhibited their passion shamelessly. They were 
constantly seen together in public. The whole Court rang 
with it. When Mme. de Luynes fell into disgrace, in April 
1622, she realized that her only chance of getting out of her 
difficulties, and inducing the King to revoke his decision, 
was to marry M. de Chevreuse. 

According to the rules which governed the French Court, 
a Prince of Lorraine was not a Frenchman ; he had no 
place in the hierarchy of the nobility of the kingdom, and 
in public ceremonies, as the records had it, "no regard was 
paid him." At the very most, and as a matter of courtesy, 
he was granted some special treatment within the apart- 
ments of the King and Queen. But if he could succeed 
in obtaining the title of a French Duke, his position would 
be totally changed. He would not cease to be a foreigner, 
as a matter of principle, but once his title had been 
verified and registered in Parliament, he would be bound 
by his oath to the King of France, he would be answerable 
to the jurisdiction of the sovereign courts of the kingdom, 
entitled to assume the position assigned to persons of his 
rank in the French aristocracy, and consequently would 
be, in a certain sense, a native of the country. Persons 
occupying this situation enjoyed, at one and the same 
time, the respect paid to their ducal title, and the attentions 
due to their rank as foreign princes related to a reigning 
family in Europe. This was the position occupied by the 
Guise family- They were treated with consideration. 
And besides, the alarm their political power had inspired 

32 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

for the past half-century inchned the Kings of France and 
their ministers to more than a Httle prudence in their 
deahngs with a family which had come within an ace of 
dethroning one of the successors of St, Louis. By this time 
the Guises were related to the Royal Family ; the sister of 
the Due de Chevreuse, Mme. de Conti, being the King's 
cousin, and a Princess of the blood royal. 

Personally, Claude de Lorraine enjoyed the King's 
special regard, on account of his fidelity, and the signal 
services he had rendered to the sovereign. He had taken 
Marie de Medicis' part in the troublous times of her 
regency, and that of Louis XIII through all the civil wars 
arising out of the revolt of the nobles and the Queen- 
Mother, subsequently to the year 1617. "The diligence 
you have made in His Majesty's service," so runs a letter 
from Rucellai to the Prince, written in 1620, in the King's 
name, "has exceedingly strengthened the esteem in which 
your person is held here, and as you are one of the few 
noblemen who have served the King, and as among those 
few, your services have been held valuable above all others, 
you may rest assured that you will be the most privileged 
henceforward." 

To marry M. de Chevreuse meant, therefore, for Mme. 
de Luynes, to make her entry into a family which would 
ensure her the enjoyment of all the privileges — legal, moral, 
and political — its members possessed. It meant being the 
wife of an important nobleman, to whom profound respect 
was paid. Nobody would dare to strike at her; she would 
have the House of Guise, and all its numerous ramifications, 
a most powerful cabal, behind her. There would be no 
possibility of driving her from Court. The Princesse de 
Conti, once she was her sister-in-law, would see to that. 
Further, such a marriage meant, for Mme. de Luynes, 
the realization of a splendid dream. She would be allied 
to the reigning family of a foreign kingdom, related to 
the King of England, who treated the Due de Chevreuse 
D 33 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

as his personal friend. M. de Chevreuse was "that very 
high and illustrious Prince, Monseigneur Claude de Lor- 
raine, Peer, Grand Chamberlain of France, the King's 
Governor and Lieutenant-General in Upper and Lower 
Auvergne." The courtiers called him "Monseigneur," and 
"Your Highness": Marie de Medicis called him 
" Nephew " : when he went abroad, foreign courts re- 
ceived him with a;ll the honours due to members of 
quasi-sovereign houses. In London, for instance, he 
dined in "the King's Bedchamber," a most signal 
favour ! He had his own chamber at the Louvre, jus^ 
over the King's. He was said to be very rich : he had 
a pension of 40,000 livres a year from the King, who made 
him presents as well, from time to time, 12,000 and 15,000 
livres at once ! Quite recently, on the death of the Due du 
Maine, in 162 1, the office of Grand Chamberlain, the second 
in importance of the "domestic offices of the Crown," had 
been conferred on him, in proof of the absolute confidence 
and esteem in which the monarch held him. He enjoyed 
the highest possible favour. 

He had never married. At one lime he had wished to 
espouse Mile, de Vendome, the natural daughter of Henri 
IV, but the Due du Maine came forward as her suitor, and 
Chevreuse retired. For a moment he had thought of 
Mile, du Maine; the negotiations were carried to a certain 
point, and then broken off. Mme. de Luynes was not 
likely to find it difficult to induce him to marry her. 

Had the idea already been discussed between them ? 
Mme. de Luynes was to declare it had. M. de Chevreuse 
will seem to have been unaware of it. It is quite probable 
that the plan had been talked over, and no final decision 
reached. 

In the course of the three days that followed the summons 
to retire from Court, of which Jeannin had been the 
bearer, Marie de Rohan despatched a gentleman, a friend 
of her own, to M. de Chevreuse. M. de Chevreuse was 
not in Paris ; he had gone on pilgrimage to Notre-Dame de 

34 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

Liesse, near Laon, with M. de Liancourt, M. de Blain- 
ville, MM. Zamet and Fontenay-Mareuil. This gentleman 
found M. de Chevreuse and explained his errand. Mme. 
de Luynes made no mystery of the fact that she had been 
ordered to retire from Court, and that she could devise 
no other way of escape from her disgrace, save that of 
marrying the Due de Chevreuse. She begged the Duke to 
consent to this union, and inform the King of it, adding 
that "nobody doubted that, out of consideration for him. 
His Majesty's order would be cancelled." But haste was 
urgent, because "if she once left the Louvre, it would be 
more difficult to put the matter right." 

Surprised, M. de Chevreuse hesitated. He began by 
cross-questioning the messenger as to the reasons of Mme. 
de Luynes's disgrace. What had happened ? Then he 
consulted his travelling companions. Fontenay-Mareuil, 
who was present, tells us in his Memoirs that each of them 
in turn tried to dissuade the Duke. His own position, they 
urged, would be compromised : he was certain to meet 
with all sorts of annoyances : after all the benefits the King 
had bestowed on him, and especially the office of Grand 
Chamberlain, to which he had just been appointed, he 
would fail in his duty to His Majesty if he married a person 
so little liked by him. Convinced by their arguments, 
M. de Chevreuse told the gentleman he was unable to 
accede to Mme. de Luynes' proposal. 

He went back to Paris, and he went to see Mme. de 
Luynes. That was a very imprudent thing to do. He had 
reckoned without her powers of seduction. She cast her 
toils about him, pleaded with him; he began to weaken. 
She redoubled her entreaties, he gave in. To make assur- 
ance doubly sure, she told him she would write at once 
to the King to announce their marriage, and solicit his 
permission, in the usual manner. He had not strength to 
resist her. 

When Louis XHI received Mme. de Luynes' letter, he 
became furiously angry. His first impulse was to refuse 

35 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

his consent. Those about him dissuaded him. After all, 
it was suggested, it would be against his conscience to 
prevent two persons who had notoriously compromised 
each other, from marrying now. If His Majesty desired 
to keep Mme. de Luynes away from Court, he would 
always find means of carrying out his wish : if he preferred 
tO' show consideration for M. de Chevreuse, things might 
be settled quietly, without any open break, and the King's 
dignity would be safeguarded. Louis XIII allowed him- 
self to be convinced. 

But before he had made his decision known, he heard' 
that Mme. de Luynes, without waiting for his answer, had 
caused her marriage to be celebrated forthwith. Did 
she fear a refusal from the King ? More probably, know- 
ing his weak and irresolute nature, she thought M. de 
Chevreuse might change his mind. The ceremony was 
hurriedly performed, in the presence of a few persons only, 
on the 20th of April, just four months after the death of the 
Constable de Luynes. " I know not what the conse- 
quences will be," wrote Marillac, when he announced the 
news to Richelieu. There was a chorus of derisive 
laughter. The King was exceedingly angry. "The 
King," writes Marillac to Richelieu again, "is deeply 
offended with the Connetable and M. de Chevreuse, and 
has conceived a great hatred against them. He says 
that not one of the relations would sign the marriage 
contract." 

But the thing was done. And what could others do, 
save endure what they were powerless to prevent ? Within 
a few days, Louis XIII, following the correct formula, sent 
a letter of congratulation to the newly married couple ; 
the courtiers' compliments were quickly added. There 
may well have been a touch of irony in all these congratula- 
tions. Everybody thought Mme. de Luynes far the most 
fortunate of the two partners; she was held to acquire "a 
great deal of glory— widow of the Constable though she 

36 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

was — by her marriage with a Prince of the House of 
Lorraine ! " 

None of the relations, so the King had asserted, would 
sign the marriage contract. He was to some extent 
mistaken. This contract is still in existence. On the side 
of the Due de Chevreuse, at all events, sixteen of his 
relations, and these the most important, did append their 
names to the document : the bridegroom's brother, the 
Due de Guise, his uncle, the Due de Nemours, his cousins, 
Charles de Gonzague and the Comte d'Harcourt, his aunt, 
the Dowager Princesse de Conde, his cousin, the Princesse 
de Conde, his mother, Catherine de Cleves, widow of "le 
Balafre," besides the Princesse de Conti, the young 
Duchesse de Guise, and four of his cousins, the Duchesses 
de Mercoeur, de Longueville, d'Elbeuf, and de Vendome. 
The abstentions were on Mme. de Luynes' side. Nobody 
belonging to her would sign, in fact. Even her father, 
M. de Montbazon, in whose house in the Rue de Bethizy 
the lawyers prepared the document, empowered a third 
person to sign for him. 

Under the terms of this contract, the newly married 
persons were to have the independent enjoyment of their 
respective patrimonies. Marie de Rohan was to pay a 
sum of 300,000 livres into the common purse, and M. de 
Chevreuse, in return, ensured his widow the possession of 
a dowry of 10,000 livres a year, charged on the income of 
the Duchy of Chevreuse, and the enjoyment as a residence 
of the Chateau de Dampierre, furnished "in a manner fitted 
to her quality, with its poultry-yards, gardens, and canals." 
If Mme. de Chevreuse married again, she was to give up 
Dampierre. The bride and bridegroom made over to each 
other everything either of them had acquired in the way of 
fortune, apart from the personal patrimony of each, and it 
was specifically provided that each was to pay his or her 
own debts. This precaution was to prove anything but 
superfluous. 

37 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Public opinion was somewhat exercised by the fact that 
Marie de Rohan, who had only received 200,000 livres from 
her father, on the occasion of her first marriage, and even 
that sum not fully paid, was able to give 300,000 livres 
to M. de Chevreuse. "According to the contract," writes 
Marillac to Richelieu, on April the 26th, "the bride 
gives all her fortune, whatever it may be, to the children 
that may be born of this marriage, to the exclusion of those 
of her first." The lawsuits of later years were to prove that 
this donation of 300,000 livres was fictitious. Besides, the 
children of the Connetable de Luynes had their father's , 
fortune. They did not depend on their mother, and were, 
indeed, to come to her help in hours of difficulty. 

In the letters of congratulation addressed by Louis XIII 
to the newly married couple, he made no reference to his 
order that Marie de Rohan should leave the Court. Thus 
it remained uncancelled. There was nothing for it but to 
wait, and husband and wife retired from Paris till the 
question should be definitely settled. The marriage took 
place on the 20th of April, and on the 21st Mme. de 
Chevreuse carried off her husband to Lesigny-en-Brie. 
"The happy lovers," writes Marillac, "have gone to praise 
God for their prosperity in the chapel at Lesigny, and take 
possession together of the house the dead man prepared for 
them without ever thinking of it ! It is the joke of the 
whole Court! " Presently M. de Chevreuse took his wife 
to the Chateau de Dampierre, there to do her the honours 
of his Duchy of Chevreuse. And thus did Marie de Rohan 
enter into possession of the domain on the name of which 
she was to shed lustre, and of the house she was to love so 
dearly, and inhabit so long, through so many hours of joy 
and sorrow ! 

Once a small and unpretending manor, the Chateau of 
Chevreuse, with the property surrounding it, had been 
erected into a barony in the first place, and then, in 1545, 
transformed into a Duchy, by King Francis the First, for 

38 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

the benefit of tfie Duke and Duchess d'fitampes. Parlia- 
ment had refused to register the letters of erection on the 
plea that the manor of Chevreuse lacked the importance 
requisite for such an honour. It was, in fact, a maxim 
among the Crown lawyers that the title of Duke, the most 
important in the country, was not to follow any landed 
property unless the value of the lands warranted the 
honour, and unless the income they brought in would 
permit the owner to make a fine figure at Court. After the 
Duchesse d'Etampes' time, the Cardinal de Lorraine, 
brother of the Due de Guise, bought the place, added to 
the landed property, and then petitioned Henri II to renew 
the erection of the barony into a dukedom. To this the 
King agreed, in 1555. And this time Parliament did 
register the act. From the Cardinal, the Duchy of Chev- 
reuse passed to his nephew, the Duke Henri, "le Balafre," 
and after his murder at Blois, to his eldest son, Charles de 
Guise. Henri IV had often told Duke Charles that if he 
would make over Chevreuse to one of his brothers, he (the 
King) would add a peerage to the dukedom. In 1606, 
Charles handed over the property to his brother Claude 
de Lorraine, Prince de Joinville. Henri IV forgot his 
promise, but Louis XIII kept it for him in 1612. Once 
more Parliament made difficulties. It did not give way 
until 1627. 

A feudal property brought in two kinds of revenue ; the 
income returned by the owner's own personal estates, his 
private property, which he either let out in farms or farmed 
himself ; and the feudal revenues made up of the dues 
and rights paid to the feudal lord by the people who lived 
on the manor lands, or on the fiefs belonging to it. In the 
sixteenth century, the lordship of Chevreuse included, 
besides the village of Chevreuse itself, the lands, fiefs, and 
manors of Maurepas, Damvilliers, Maincourt, and some 
others. Dampierre did not, at that moment, form part of 
the property. The whole was a dependency of the diocese 

39 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

of Paris, and the Baron de Chevreuse swore his oath of 
homage and fealty to the Bishop. The Cardinal de Lor- 
raine enlarged the property by the addition of the manor of 
Meudon, the lands of Dampierre, the fiefs of Saclay and 
Cottigny, and thus succeeded in getting together a property 
that represented an income of some 6ood livres tournois. 

When Parliament consented, on May lo, 1555, to 
authorize the erection of Chevreuse into a duchy, a 
stipulation was made that this sum of 6000 livres was only 
to be accepted provisionally, and on condition that the Due 
de Chevreuse should increase it to 10,000 livres. In July , 
1564, the Cardinal de Lorraine obtained letters-patent, 
issued by Charles IX, whereby the King took the place of 
the Bishop of Paris, as the immediate over-lord of the lands 
of Chevreuse. Successive dukes added to the property. 
Claude de Lorraine was to enlarge its borders so 
considerably that it was valued towards the middle of the 
seventeenth century at something like six or seven millions 
of francs of our money. Marie de Rohan had not been 
mistaken. M. de Chevreuse did not appear to be a very 
wealthy man. 

A splendid reception was prepared for the new Duchess. 
The small and ancient village of Chevreuse, peaceful and 
neat-looking, like all the villages in the lie de France, 
stood within its hoary walls, even as it stands to this day, 
at the foot of the Madeleine, and its ancient castle, built in 
the Middle Ages. People talked of "the town and castle 
of Chevreuse," the manants et habitants. To the lands and 
fiefs which had composed the Duchy of Chevreuse in the 
sixteenth century, others had been added — Villepreux and 
the adjoining parishes, Choisel, at the end of the present 
park of Dampierre, the Chateau of Becquencourt ; and the 
private domains of the owner had been increased by the 
addition of the lands of La Tuilerie, Mousseaux, the Mare 
aux Bois, and the mills of Tan, the Pont de Beauce, etc. 

All the officials who managed the estates : the officers of 

40 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

justice, a bailiff, who sat at Chevreuse, assisted by a clerk 
and an official scribe ; local justices, sitting in several places, 
and deciding cases that did not exceed a certain fixed value, 
against which decisions appeal could be made to the bailiff 
of Chevreuse, and ultimately to the Parliament of Paris : 
— ^for the woods, which were of considerable extent, necessi- 
tating the employment of special foresters, to watch and 
protect the trees, and make them return a profit, there were 
chief Rangers and chief Foresters — all these came to 
present their duty to the Duchess. 

In her coach, Mme. de Chevreuse visited every village 
and hamlet. She was shown all her husband's domains. 
The inhabitants welcomed her with rejoicings. The spot 
that was to attract her most was the place where she was 
ultimately to fix her residence, Dampierre, in the pretty 
valley of the Yvette. 

The Chateau of Dampierre was not in those days the 
stately edifice we now admire, which was built by Mansard, 
in 1618. The old house, constructed in the sixteenth 
century by a Treasurer of France, and embellished by the 
Cardinal de Lorraine, consisted of a group of low buildings 
in the style of the Renaissance, with tiled roofs and corner 
towers, all in red brick with stone courses, set round 
several courtyards of various sizes. Moats full of water 
encircled it. The general effect was picturesque ; the 
tall steep roofs, the slender shafted chimneys, the high 
windows adorned with sculptured stone decorations that 
stood out against the roofs, imparted a varied and pleasing 
appearance to the whole pile. For those days, the house 
was an unpretending one. 

From the road, which ran straight across the valley, 
between a large sheet of water, still there, and the 
Chdteau, the traveller reached the entrance gate, a steep- 
roofed pavilion, with three windows. The outer court was 
small, surrounded by low outbuildings, and beyond them, 
to the eastern side, lay a larger court, the poultry-yard, 

41 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

with outhouses all round it — a remnant of which still 
remains in the shape of a large open-raftered hall, entered 
by a doorway which is not devoid of character. On the 
right side of the outer court, and behind a drawbridge, was 
the second entrance of the Chateau, a one-storied pavilion, 
with a steep roof in the style of Henri IV. Then came the 
inner courtyard, very plain, square, the buildings all round 
it of one story only, except those on the western side, 
which had another story looking over the water. In the 
middle of these stood the entrance door of the house, 
rather low, arched, and without any kind of ornament, 
and in this central part of the dwelling, on the left, was the 
great hall, a fine room with open rafters and a tall monu- 
mental stone chimney-piece, lighted by six windows. 
The rest of the house was taken up with living-rooms and 
servants' quarters. 

On the other side of the main building, towards the 
south, there was a square grass-plot, with flower-beds cut 
in it, surrounded by a portico, along the outer edge of 
which a ditch full of water ran. Another lawn of still 
larger dimensions, also cut up into flower-beds, and 
bounded by the waters of a canal, completed the garden on 
the Chevreuse side. There was no park at all. All about 
the place lay a perpetual succession of woods, cultivated 
fields, meadow-land, "warrens," and vineyards. The 
thing that struck one was the quantities of water. People 
used to say, "the enclosures, gardens, ponds, canals and 
fountains of Dampierre." In its frame of woodland and 
greenery, Dampierre was the picture of a delightful rural 
habitation, an ideal retreat, buried in the solitude and calm 
of the quiet country. 

Madame de Chevreuse took a fancy to the place ; she 
liked the squat homelike dwelling and its view over the 
great pond ; the walk under the stone portico that ran 
round the flower lawn, and reminded her of the finest 
houses of the preceding century — Gaillon, for instance — 

42 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

delighted her. At her instigation, the duke her husband 
began to take an interest in the place. Not caring to 
construct another dwelling — he was no house-builder — 
he made up his mind to enlarge the flower gardens, and 
create a large park all round them. He it was who made 
the great park of Dampierre. He followed the methods 
of an opulent nobleman, to whom the complaints of his 
humbler neighbours and his own outlay mattered but 
little. He bought the land he wanted by sheer compulsion, 
without taking the trouble to do things delicately. He 
enlarged his borders as far as the parishes of Choisel and 
Senlis, three-quarters of a league away. He was not the 
only person who did such things. "He made his park," 
explains Tallemant, "after the fashion of old d'Angouleme 
at Grosbois. He simply enclosed everybody else's land ! " 
To quiet the uproar, he promised keys of the park to all 
the injured persons. But he never gave away one. A 
"Captain of the Chateau of Dampierre," aided by "the 
Steward of the Household of Monseigneur the Due de 
Chevreuse, and Forester of that place," was put in charge 
of the Chateau, and kept all things in order there. 

But great as the delights of Dampierre, its woods and 
its duchy, might be, the new Duchess had no notion of 
spending her life there. How did she stand with the 
King? Could she go back to Court or not? She applied 
for information to her sister-in-law, the Princesse de Conti. 

This lady, as the author, though indirectly, of their 
marriage, owed it to her brother and her friend to help them 
out of their uncertainty. Alone and unaided,, she might 
have found some difficulty in doing it ; she summoned 
Bassompierre to her assistance. 

Bassompierre, at that time in high favour with Louis 
XHI, was attending the King on his campaign against the 
Southern Huguenots. He had the sovereign's ear, and 
could reckon on being favourably received. Louis 
delighted in the company of this handsome nobleman, 

43 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

unfailingly gay, jovial, witty, deferential, and devoted to 
his master. In July of that same year (1622) he was to 
make him a Marshal of France. Now Bassompierre doted 
on the Princesse de Conti, whose faithful lover he remained 
for thirty years. He undertook to perform the com- 
mission suggested to him. The attempt to get Mme. de 
Chevreuse recalled was soon known at Court. The affair 
was nick-named "the ladies' cabal." Well-informed 
people doubted its success. "Bassompierre," wrote 
Marillac to Richelieu, "has nothing to go on except his 
own cunning and effrontery. The Princess will find his 
favour will give her no better support than her own legs 
just after she had lain in. His favour is as slight as her 
legs were shaky." He was mistaken. Bassompierre had 
excellent means at his command. 

As a matter of fact, the position of M. de Chevreuse 
was by no means so compromised by his marriage as 
might have been imagined. Fie was too powerful for 
that. Louis XIII, at war with the Huguenots, did not 
care to provoke a quarrel with his great nobles as well. 
The memory of the seven or eight years of civil strife 
they had already waged against him was too present 
to his mind for his Ministers to fail in advising all 
necessary caution. The Guise family was one of the most 
influential in the country; its following was large; its 
renown would quite probably attract many partisans. 
All these circumstances had served M. de Chevreuse. 
His personal favour with the King was still high, and that 
for reasons which rendered his marriage without the 
King's leave, to a lady who was in disgrace with the 
monarch, a fault not so particularly grave as to outweigh 
his credit. At that very moment, indeed, Louis stood in 
need of his services, and was making use of them. The 
Court of France had been trying, for a considerable period, 
to arrange a marriage between the King's young sister, 
Henrietta-Maria, and the son of the King of England, who 

44 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

afterwards became Charles I . There were many diffi- 
culties in the way, and the negotiations had been broken 
off several times. M. de Chevreuse, who was in friendly 
relations with the King of England, his kinsman, acted as 
unofficial go-between. The King depended on his help. 
This was not the moment to fall out with him over a 
marriage in which he had been the victim of the lady's 
cunning rather than a deliberate offender against his 
master's will. 

Bassompierre felt his way. Might M. de Chevreuse 
come and make his bow to the King, who was carrying on 
his campaign against the Huguenots in Guyenne? A 
favourable answer was vouchsafed, and a month after his 
marriage, on May 20, 1622, the Due de Chevreuse reached 
the camp before St. Emilion, near Libourne, whither the 
King had come after the surrender of Royan. 

He was well received. Louis XHI seemed to have for- 
gotten all about his marriage, and never mentioned it to 
him. He showed him just as much favour as before, to 
such a point, indeed, that on the 27th, M. de Chevreuse 
was appointed Grand Falconer of France ! Everybody 
concluded Marie de Rohan's business was on the way to a 
satisfactory settlement. M. de Chevreuse's conduct justi- 
fied the royal affection for him. Nobody was braver in 
the field; in June, when the attack on Negrepelisse was 
delivered, he took command of the forlorn hope — a flying 
column of attack — and hurled himself, with Bassompierre 
and Praslin, upon the enemy's defences. He only just 
escaped with his life. Louis XHI sought his advice, 
invited him to attend his councils of war, listened to his 
opinions. It would have been difficult to desire a more 
established position. 

So Chevreuse, having concerted measures with Bassom- 
pierre, ventured to speak to the King of his wife, and to 
ask His Majesty for a word which would permit her to 
return to Court. The moment he opened his mouth he 

45 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

was snubbed; — Louis XIII was a suspicious man. There 
was nothing for it but to wait. It was a well-known fact 
that the Council of Ministers, with the exception of M. de 
Puisieux, who favoured the Duchess for personal reasons 
of his own, was strongly opposed to her return. From 
the 20th of May till the 3rd of July, Chevreuse and 
Bassompierre carried on a siege, prudent, methodical, 
gradual. Louis XIII could not well hold out for ever. 
By the end of the sixth week the petitioners had gained 
their point. The King consented to allow Mme. de 
Chevreuse to take up her duties about the Queen. She 
was to continue in her offices, including that of Super- 
intendent of the Household ; but the royal forgiveness was 
only bestowed out of regard for M. de Chevreuse. "Out 
of the affection I bear my cousin the Due de Chevreuse," 
wrote the King to Anne of Austria, "I am very glad his 
wife should come back." He was never to lose any oppor- 
tunity of stating, in the most specific manner, that 
anything he did for Mme. de Chevreuse was granted solely 
on her husband's account. The winding up of M. de 
Luynes' affairs had been a somewhat complicated business 
(it had been necessary, in fact, to appeal to the King 
for leave to include moneys belonging to the Constable, 
and found, after his death, in the Citadel of Amiens, 
in the sum at the disposal of his heirs), and Louis 
XIII had facilitated the arrangements, on condition that 
the money thus secured should be handed over directly 
to M. de Chevreuse, as an instalment of the 300,000 Uvres 
the Duchess his wife was bound to pay into the common 
purse. "Now that it has been explained to me," writes 
Louis to M. de Luynes' brother, M. de Chaulnes, "that 
the sums held in common by the Duchesse de Chevreuse 
and my late cousin the Constable, have been liquidated, it 
has been my pleasure to inform you that once you have set 
aside the share of his children in the inheritance of the 
moneys found in my Citadel of Amiens, belonging to my 

46 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

said cousin the Constable, you are at liberty to hand over 
to my cousin the Due de Chevreuse, without making any 
difficulty at all, all that he acquires through his marriage. 
The duties he performs about my person, to my own 
satisfaction and the benefit of my service, lead me to aid 
the arrangement of his affairs which he expects thereby." 
Precarious indeed was the return of Mme. de Chevreuse to 
Court, as long as the King nourished such feelings con- 
cerning her ! 

Quietly she crept back to Paris, unobtrusively she 
retook her place in the Queen's circle. From the earliest 
moments of her reappearance, she was to feel the effect of 
the King's displeasure. 

During the life-time of the Due de Luynes, the old 
Duchesse de Montmorency, Anne of Austria's Lady of 
Honour, had not renewed her protest against the appoint- 
ment of so young a woman to the post of Superintendent of 
the Queen's Household; she had been content with absent- 
ing herself from Court, and not performing her duties 
there. Once M. de Luynes was dead, his family fallen into 
disgrace, and his widow's position sorely shaken, she 
decided to make a fresh claim. Pier stepson, the Due de 
Montmorency, took up her quarrel : he set forth that when 
Mme. de Montmorency had been appointed Lady of 
Honour, there had been a promise that, to save her 
dignity, no Superintendent should be appointed at all. The 
appointment of Mme. de Chevreuse had been a contraven- 
tion of this undertaking, and ought to be cancelled. Mme. 
de Chevreuse defended her own cause. Two years earlier, 
Louis Xni would have imposed silence on Mme. de 
Montmorency. This time, he affected a desire to do what 
was just and fair. A commissary was deputed to examine 
the documents connected with the case, and make his report 
to the Council, which was to decide the matter. 

The verdict was that both ladies were to resign their 
functions. This decision displeased everybody. "The 

47 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

judgment," wrote Bassompierre, "is the worst they could 
have come to, seeing it gives offence to both parties." And 
these parties "two such powerful houses as those of Lor- 
raine and Montmorency ! " To calm this emotion, the 
•King promised the Due de Chevreuse he would make it up 
to him, and appointed him First Gentleman of his Bed- 
chamber, an office that had remained vacant since the death 
of the Due de Luynes. It was the Duke, not the Duchess, 
who was given the compensation ! The office of Super- 
intendent of the Queen's Household was suppressed, and 
Mme. de Lannoy was appointed Lady of Honour. 

Mme. de Chevreuse consoled herself. Though she had 
no official functions to perform in the Household of Anne 
of Austria, none the less was she the sovereign's constant 
companion and friend. She was perpetually in her com- 
pany, the old intimacy had been resumed, and she herself 
was still the same merry, lively being, the pet of the 
Queen's circle. She had contrived, in short, except for the 
King's personal dislike of her, to save the situation ; and 
her position, in a sense, was even better than it had been 
before. 

Marie de Rohan was no longer the wife of a King's 
favourite, risen from a comparatively low estate, — risen 
extremely high, indeed, but exposed to any sudden fall. 
She was a member of a foreign princely house, she was 
called "Your Highness," she was far better armed, 
now, against the "slings and arrows of outrageous 
fortune ! " 

An important conjuncture of circumstances was shortly 
to shed still greater lustre, in the eyes of courtiers and 
people alike, on the proud position she had regained. 

After much difficult negotiation, the marriage of 
Henrietta-Maria and the Prince of Wales was practically 
arranged. This union had been earnestly desired by the 
English Princes. Their letters to M. de Chevreuse prove 
the fact. They express their writers' gratitude for the 

48 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

Duke's zeal in promoting the success of the business. In 
spite of perpetual disappointments, M. de Chevreuse 
continued to press the advisers of Louis XIII to 
adhere to a plan conceived by Henri IV, and cherished 
for years by Marie de Medicis. He kept up constant 
intercourse with the English Ambassadors, and was in 
regular correspondence with London. And from London, 
answers to his letters reached him. King James I's 
Minister and favourite, who voiced the sentiments of 
his Master and his Master's son, the Prince of Wales, 
assured M. de Chevreuse that he possessed his "whole 
affection," invited him to come over to England, sent him 
splendid gifts in the meantime, and in April, 1620, 
despatched three splendid saddle-horses for his acceptance. 
"Had it not been for my desire to send you some earnest 
of my passion for your service, I would have awaited your 
arrival, so that you might choose out of all that I possess 
that which might be most agreeable to you, to give you 
pleasure when you ride abroad." And M. de Chevreuse, 
delighted to have his share in so important an undertaking, 
put fresh pressure on the Ministers of the French King, 
urging them not to insist so pertinaciously on the con- 
ditions they thought it right to impose, and striving to 
clear up every misunderstanding. "We know not," wrote 
King James to him, on July 24, 1624, "which we should 
value most, the constancy of your affection, or the kindness 
and sincerity of your contribution in favour of this negotia- 
tion, so necessary to Christendom, so fitting for the two 
crowns, so equally balanced as regards the individuals ! 
And although the certainty we feel takes away all reason 
for begging you to persevere in your good offices, we 
cannot refrain from esteeming your mediation, and thank- 
ing you for it." The Prince of Wales added the expression 
of his own gratitude to his father's. "You are my dear 
friend," he wrote to M. de Chevreuse, "and daily you give 
me proofs of it. Render me all the good services that the 
nearness of my blood to yours demands ! " If he won 
E 49 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Henrietta-Maria for his wife, he was resolved he would 
accept his bride from no hand but that of M. de Chevreuse ; 
he would request it might be M. de Chevreuse who should 
conduct his betrothed to meet him. "I shall be more glad 
to receive that gentle Princess from you, as her conductor, 
than from any other person in the world." And Chevreuse, 
touched by the friendship and confidence shown him by 
the English Prince, answered with fervent expressions of 
his own devotion. "My blood and my life," he wrote, 
"are not too poor a thank-offering ! " 

It was in the autumn of the year 1624 that the marriage, 
after endless discussion, was finally arranged. The Prince 
of Wales was to have travelled to France to espouse the 
Princess, and conduct her back to London. But in the 
meantime James I died, and the new King, Charles I, 
could not leave his kingdom. Thus the nuptial ceremony, 
according to the usual custom, was to be solemnized in 
Paris, and the King of England to be represented by a 
person chosen by him, and to whom he delegated power 
to espouse the French Princess in his name and stead. 
According to the promise given, the personage thus 
chosen by Charles I was M. de Chevreuse. 

Joyfully M. de Chevreuse accepted the honour. His 
letter in reply to the King's overflowed with delight. After 
the ceremony he was to attend the bride to England ; Mme. 
de Chevreuse was to follow. The pomp of the wedding 
ceremony, performed in the most magnificent surround- 
ings, busying the whole Court, attracting the whole 
populace, drew every eye upon the happy Duke. Honours, 
respect, all good things were to be showered on him who, 
by a diplomatic fiction, was to be assimilated, for the 
nonce, to the King of England. Mme. de Chevreuse was 
to have her share in this glory and good fortune. 

On the morning of the day fixed for the betrothal 
ceremony. May 8, 1625, the two Ambassadors Extra- 
ordinary from the English Court, the Earls of Carlisle and 

50 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

Holland, attended by a numerous train of gentlemen, went 
in solemn procession to fetch M. de Chevreuse from his 
chamber in the Louvre, and conduct him to the King's 
Bedchamber, where Louis XIII, surrounded by the Royal 
Family, the Princes of the Blood, his great nobles, and his 
Ministers, awaited him. The Duke was dressed in black, 
with diamond-studded bands, the tags or aiguillettes of 
which were adorned with precious stones. Henrietta- 
Maria wore a gown of gold and silver tissue, worked with 
fieurs de lis, and ornamented with pearls. The Chancellor 
of France read the marriage contract aloud, the terms of the 
procuration sent to M. de Chevreuse by the King of 
England were transcribed on to the document, and then the 
King, Henrietta-Maria, the two Queens, M. de Chevreuse, 
and the Ambassadors, affixed their signatures. This done, 
the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, Grand Almoner of 
France, blessed the betrothed pair, the Due de Chevreuse 
acting as fiance. 

On Sunday, the nth of May, the marriage was solem- 
nized at Notre-Dame de Paris. The church had been 
hung, for the occasion, with beautiful tapestries worked 
with gold and silver threads, belonging to the King. In 
front of the great door a huge scaffolding had been erected, 
and covered with hangings. This was connected with the 
entrance to the cathedral choir by a gently sloping plat- 
form, and with the archiepiscopal palace — an ancient 
edifice, dating from the Middle Ages, which stood on the 
southern arm of the Seine — by a covered gallery, along 
which the procession was to pass. At nine o'clock in the 
morning, Henrietta-Maria was conducted to the Arch- 
bishop's palace. At eleven, one of the Queen's coaches, 
in which the Earls of Carlisle and Holland were seated, 
carried the Due de Chevreuse from his house in the Rue St. 
Thomas du Louvre to the palace, likewise. Meanwhile, 
all the state authorities were passing into Notre-Dame, and 
taking up their places there, Members of Parliament 

51 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

in their red robes, judges of the courts, sheriffs, the 
Mayor of Paris, officials of every order and every jurisdic- 
tion. The King, attended by the Court, Princes and 
Princesses, Dukes, great lords and ladies, all in full dress, 
was to go and fetch the bride and lead her into church. 
He never came till half-past four in the afternoon. At 
five the procession began to move. At its head, after the 
Grand Master of the King's Household and the Grand 
Master of the Ceremonies, surrounded by noblemen, and 
with the Earls of Holland and Carlisle on either side of 
him, walked the Due de Chevreuse, magnificently attired 
in black, with a scarf studded with diamond roses, 
and a black velvet cap clasped with a diamond 
badge. After him came the Captain of the Louvre Gate, 
the Cent-Suisses of the Bodyguard, hautboy players, 
drummers and trumpeters, the Knights of the Holy 
Ghost, seven heralds at arms, three Marshals of France, 
Dukes and Peers, Princes, and then Louis XHI, covered 
with gold and silver embroideries, and leading Henrietta- 
Maria by one of her hands, while her other was held 
by Gaston d'Orl6ans, and her long train was borne by the 
Princesses de Conde and de Conti, and the Comtesse de 
Soissons. The two Queens followed, also in gowns with 
long trains : Marie de M^dicis with an equerry on either 
side, Anne of Austria between the Due d'Uz6s a\id the 
Marquis de Mauny. Then came Mile, de Montpensier, 
the Duchesse de Guise, and in her proper place, Marie de 
Rohan, between two courtiers, her train borne by an 
equerry. The Dowager of Elbeuf and the reigning 
Duchess closed the procession. Slowly the array passed 
on, to the sound of the music, and the clanging of the 
bells, and the cheers of the assembled crowds. On the 
scaffolding there was a pause. The King of England being 
a "Huguenot," his marriage could not take place within 
the church ; it was solemnized on this exterior platform ; 
Louis XHI and Monsieur gave away their sister to M. de 

52 



THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE 

Chevreuse; the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld pronounced 
the liturgical prayers appointed for the benediction of the 
marriage ceremony, and once more the procession moved 
on into Notre-Dame. When it reached the choir, M. de 
Chevreuse and the two English Ambassadors made their 
obeisance to the King, and left the church. Mass was 
said — late though it was — by the Cardinal de la Roche- 
foucauld. That over, the Due de Chevreuse returned, 
reassumed his office at the entrance to the choir, and the 
procession wended its way back to the archiepiscopal palace. 

In the evening, a splendid banquet was served in the 
great hall of that same palace, at which Louis XIII was 
present. On his right sat Marie de Medicis and Anne of 
Austria ; on his left Henrietta-Maria, the Due de Chev- 
reuse, Holland, Carlisle and Mme. de Chevreuse. According 
to custom, the greatest lords of the Court served the Royal 
personages, and the other guests were waited on by noble- 
men. Paris was illuminated, there were bonfires at all the 
crossways, the Place de la Greve resounded with the noise 
of cannon and mortars. In the courtiers' eyes, the splendour 
of these festivities underlined the exceptional importance of 
the position attained by M. and Mme. de Chevreuse. 

The hand of Fate which had once threatened Marie de 
Rohan had been turned aside. She was free to take up her 
old existence. In the Queen's inner circle her impulsive 
gaiety, her giddy humour, her love of pleasure and adven- 
ture might run their course unchecked. Once more she 
fed Anne of Austria's mind on that in which her own 
delighted — love and intrigue. And more than that, she 
was soon to do her best to draw the Queen into a love- 
affair of the most dangerous kind : within a fortnight of the 
marriage of Henrietta-Maria, on May 24, 1625, the young 
and fascinating Duke of Buckingham, the King of 
England's all-powerful Minister, sent by his Royal Master 
to conduct the newly married Sovereign of Great Britain 
to her future home, arrived in Paris. 

53 



CHAPTER III 

BUCKINGHAM 

Love-affairs of Mme. de Chevreuse and the Earl of Holland — Bucking- 
ham — His journey to Paris — Buckingham and Anne of Austria — ■ 
The Amiens episode — Mme. de Chevreuse in England — Richelieu's 
displeasure — 1625 

Among the various English ambassadors with whom the 
Due and the Duchesse de Chevreuse had had deahngs in the 
course of the negotiations connected with the marriage of 
Henrietta-Maria, their closest intercourse had been with 
the Earl of Holland. Henry Rich, Lord Kensington, and 
afterwards Earl of Holland, belonged to the illustrious 
family of Warwick. He was destined to play his part in 
the English Revolution, and to die on the scaffold. King 
James I had sent him into France as early as in the spring 
of 1624, with orders to hurry on the negotiations, and he 
had asked to be assisted by the Earl of Carlisle, as second 
Ambassador Extraordinary. 

Still young, with a fine figure and elegant manners, 
Holland was a very attractive man. Tallemant des Reaux 
thought his good looks had something "insipid" about 
them, and La Porte, in his Memoirs, declares that "though 
he was one of the handsomest men in the world, Holland 
was effeminate." He was very well received at the Hotel 
de Chevreuse. 

This house, to which frequent reference will be made 
in the course of this book, was the dwelling the Due 
de Luynes had bought for his young wife in the Rue St, 
Thomas du Louvre, which he had left to his widow, and 
which had been sold to the Due de Chevreuse in March, 
1622. A great entrance in the Rue St. Thomas, between 

54 



BUCKINGHAM 

the Rue du Doyenne and the Rue St. Honore, adorned 
with pilasters, statues and trophies, and closed by doors 
of carved wood, embellished with medallions representing 
various personages, opened on a square inner courtyard, 
in the charming style of that earlier half of the sixteenth 
century, which inherited all the best of the Renaissance 
work. The architect, Metezeau, had gone for his inspira- 
tion to Lescot's work on the Louvre. Between the 
windows were niches filled with statues, framed by 
pilasters, surmounted by flat entablatures. Higher up, 
windows with sculptured stone frontals stood out, breaking 
the line of the roof. The general effect was distinctly 
pleasing. A large garden ran westward to the Rue St. 
Nicaise, where it was closed by a railing. From that side 
the facade of the house, which consisted of a central build- 
ing with a raised pavilion on either hand, was very hand- 
some. Set in a quiet quarter between the Louvre and the 
Tuileries, in the midst of the network of small streets that 
covered the space now occupied by the Place du Carrousel, 
the dwelling was considered one of the pleasantest and 
most luxurious abodes in the city. 

The Earl of Holland, who had begun by coming 
to the house on business connected with the marriage, 
soon returned, and came more and more often, 
for a quite different reason. The brilliant beauty of 
the lady whose merriment enlivened the whole dwelling 
had produced its effect upon him. His heart became 
engaged. Mme. de Chevreuse did not resist his flame. 
Holland, and not M. de Chevreuse, was her first, and her 
real, love. Some years later M. de Chateauneuf was to 
declare that the young Englishman had been "the man 
whom Mme. de Chevreuse had loved the best, and whom 
she loved still." Holland was invited to the Hotel de 
Chevreuse, and the house became the scene of an endless 
series of merrymakings, entertainments, and secret meet- 
ings. The husband saw nothing at all. Anne of Austria, 

55 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

who was constantly in her friend's society, soon found out 
all about it. She thought the adventure very entertaining, 
and became the lovers' confidante. Holland, who had his 
entrees into the Louvre, had long conversations there with 
the Queen and Mme. de Chevreuse. In the course of these 
conversations, Buckingham came under discussion. 

Holland was Buckingham's friend. He never tired of 
singing the praises of the King of England's favourite. 
He was the most attractive man in the kingdom, so he 
declared, "young, open-handed, dashing," successful in all 
his adventures, and, since he had gained the affections of 
the King of Great Britain, James I, and his son Charles I, 
strangely powerful. The influence he wielded was due to 
tha qualities he possessed : brilliant, supple, with a fascinat- 
ing glance, smiling sensual lips, gentle, coaxing, haughty, 
passionate, violent, all at once, Buckingham's personality 
might well have disturbed the most placid imagination. 
Anne of Austria's interest was roused, she listened eagerly, 
she began to ask questions. Then it was that Holland 
and Mme. de Chevreuse were inspired with the adventur- 
ous idea of fomenting an intrigue between the Queen of 
France and the English Duke. Princess and favourite 
alike were young, charming, and likely to attract the 
other; their minds should be worked up to the necessary 
pitch of emotion, then Buckingham, for some reason or 
other, should come to Paris, and nature would do the rest. 
Hardly had the plan been conceived before the pleasure 
its execution might afford became apparent. Holland and 
Mme. de Chevreuse threw themselves into the business 
with the fullest enjoyment. "To do honour to their own 
passion," writes La Rochefoucauld, "they planned an 
adventure of interest and gallantry between the Queen and 
the Duke of Buckingham, though neither had ever seen 
the other." 

Mme. de Chevreuse set about her work cleverly. "Mme. 
de Chevreuse told me," writes Mme. de Motteville, "when 

56 



BUCKINGHAM 

she was relating the follies of her youth, that she used to 
force the Queen's thoughts toward Buckingham by per- 
petually talking to her about him, and ridding her of the 
scruples she felt concerning such conversation." Portraits 
were exhibited. The business was not an easy one. "I 
have also heard Mme. de Chevreuse declare," adds Mme. 
de Motteville, "and with many exclamations on the subject, 
that the Queen's soul was noble and her heart pure, and 
that in spite of the climate in which she had been born — 
and in which, as I have already said, the name of lover is a 
fashionable one — she had found it the most difficult thing 
in the world to induce her to take some pleasure in the 
glory of being loved." 

Holland and Carlisle, on their side, were at work in 
England. Certain persons talked to Buckingham, and he, 
being so pleased with himself as to believe no creature 
could resist him, was flattered at the thought of stirring 
the heart of a Queen of France. He had already seen 
Anne of Austria, whatever La Rochefoucald may say to 
the contrary. During a secret journey to Spain with the 
Prince of Wales, in 1623 — there was a question at that 
moment of marrying the Prince to a Spanish Infanta — he 
had passed through Paris, and had been able, without 
revealing his identity, to be present at a ballet at 
the Louvre, where one of the King's under-tutors, j\I. de 
Preaux, quite unaware of his real quality, gave him a 
place from which he was able to indulge in a leisurely 
contemplation of Anne of Austria, whose charms found 
so brilliant a setting in the splendid festivities of her 
Court. He had never forgotten the fresh young beauty 
of the fair Princess. 

And besides, moved, as it were, by some vague presenti- 
ment, he had long been seeking, by dint of humble atten- 
tions, to attract the sovereign's sympathetic interest. "I 
dare beseech you," he writes to the Due de Chevreuse on 
April 26, 1620, "to take the trouble to cast your eyes on. 

57 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

eight coach horses which I am sending to the Queen, and 
to command that they shall be presented before her at 
some time when you yourself will be there, so that the 
wings of your authority may hide the blame which so 
much boldness will deserve ; I rely on your favour for this 
protection." Now that he knew the way was being pre- 
pared before him, he entered eagerly into the plan. 
Whether sincerely or not, he fell in love. Anne of Austria 
was informed ; she seemed touched, the adventure amused 
her. She had not realized, as yet, the import of the intrigue, 
nor the consequences it was likely to involve. "Thanks 
to the counsels of Mme. de Chevreuse," says Mme. de 
Motteville, "the Queen, in spite of the purity of her soul, 
had not been able to help finding pleasure in the charm 
of this passion (Buckingham's), which gave her a sense of 
complacency that flattered her pride more than it offended 
her virtue." Thus, on one side and the other, was a 
sentiment engendered which absence and the effect of a 
clever handling of the imagination were to cultivate, till a 
personal meeting should ripen it to a warmer feeling. 
This meeting had yet to be arranged. 

Once the marriage of Henrietta-Maria had been decided, 
Holland and Carlisle suggested that Buckingham should 
travel to France to arrange the final details of the marriage 
contract. Louis XHI's Ambassador in England, M. 
Leveneur de Tilli^res, wrote, "The English Ambassadors 
in France ask that Buckingham should come to Paris, so 
that he may seem to have concluded the marriage, and 
keep the glory of it." The King of England accepted the 
proposal "joyfully." 

The Cardinal de Richelieu was one of the French King's 
Ministers at this time. Contrary to general opinion, 
according to which the Cardinal ruled the whole govern- 
ment of the country from the very outset, Richelieu, at 
that date, was simply a Councillor, who gave his opinion, 
which was, indeed, treated with great respect, but who 

58 



BUCKINGttAM 

by no means directed the affairs of the State. This 
matter of Buckingham's journey to Paris was debated in 
the Council. All its members were much perplexed. The 
French Ambassador in London was asked for his opinion. 
It was unfavourable to the plan. M. Leveneur de Tilli^res 
pointed out that Buckingham's character was "hot and 
haughty," that there were certain clauses in the contract 
over which he "would fly into a passion." M. de Tilli^res 
was quite aware of the intrigue in preparation as to the 
favourite of the King of England and Anne of Austria; 
he did not mention it, supposing, as he explained in his 
Memoirs at a later date, "that the understanding that was 
being formed between the Queen and the Duke was a 
known thing, and that, knowing it, all the drawbacks it 
entailed must have been foreseen." In reality the King's 
Council would seem to have known nothing at all about 
the matter. Richelieu wrote from his house at Limours, 
where he was then living in somewhat poor health, that 
Buckingham's journey was certainly not a desirable thing, 
but that it would have to be endured for fear of disobliging 
the King of England's Minister, and thus spoiling the 
whole situation. Marie de Medicis had set her heart on 
the English marriage for her daughter: she was begging 
that nothing might be done to retard it. Louis XIII, as 
though he had some obscure premonition of what was to 
come, stood out. These equivocations filled up the time a 
little : the arrangements for the marriage were actually con- 
cluded without Buckingham's presence. But Holland and 
Carlisle then put forward a proposal that the Duke should 
come to France to fetch the new Queen of England — he 
would seize the opportunity to settle various political ques- 
tions. There was no possibility of getting out of it. The 
authorities in Paris agreed, and so it came about that a 
few days after the ceremony in the Cathedral of Notre- 
Dame, the English nobleman, so feared by some, so 
anxiously desired by others, entered Paris. 

59 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was at that time 
just three-and-thirty years of age. Of modest extraction, 
descended from a Norman family, and brought up in 
France, where he had learned the language, he had 
appeared when still a youth at the English Court, where 
he had been first noticed, and then doted upon, by James I, 
who soon raised him to high fortune. "Tall, good look- 
ing, of a pleasant wit, magnificent, liberal, fond of polite 
society," he seemed, so Fontenay-Mareuil tells us, "well 
suited to a Court." His fine presence was especially 
praised : he was a tall, strapping fellow, slight and vigor- 
ous, "the best built and the best looking man in the 
world," writes La Porte, "he appeared at Court with so 
much charm and so much splendour that he filled the 
populace with admiration, the ladies with delight and 
something more, the gallants with jealousy, and the 
husbands with something worse than that." 

His character was disfigured by grave faults. His pride 
in his success among women made him exceedingly self- 
conceited. He was considered vain beyond all words. 
Fontenay-Mareuil considered him "so frivolous and so 
vain that he was quite unfitted for serious business, and 
still less for war." As a politician he proved himself 
capricious, violent, overbearing, carrying a spirit of muddle 
and imprudence into every negotiation he touched. Riche- 
lieu, whose Memoirs reveal the inextricable difficulties 
which the English Minister's behaviour caused him, 
describes him as a madman. "His enterprises," he says, 
"which were devoid of reason, were carried out in misfor- 
tune, but that did not prevent them from placing us in 
great peril and doing us a great deal of harm : for the wild 
folly of an enemy is more to be feared than his wisdom, 
seeing the madman does not act on principles which are 
common to all men." The favour with which Charles I 
regarded his Minister can only be explained by a lack of 
judgment on the sovereign's part, and a frivolity of mind, 

60 



BUCKINGHAM 

in the Prince's case, strongly resembling that of his 
favourite. 

On the evening of May 24, 1625, Buckingham, who had 
travelled post, made his entry into Paris, accompanied by 
the Earl of Montgomery and a small following of English 
gentlemen. While he came, as the Mercure announced, 
"to pray his most Christian Majesty to permit the departure 
of the spouse of his King, and to place his confidence in 
the person of the said Duke to conduct her," he also pro- 
posed to define the exact meaning of certain clauses in the 
marriage settlement, and to discuss two questions of 
policy : that of preventing a peace between France and 
Spain, and that of laying the foundations of an alliance 
between France and England touching German affairs. 

As was quite proper, considering the friendly relations 
subsisting between the family of Chevreuse and the Court 
of England, and more particularly Buckingham himself, 
the Minister took up his quarters in the family mansion 
in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, This had been decided 
by Louis XIII himself. Was the King still unaware of 
the plot Buckingham and Mme. de Chevreuse were 
hatching between them? We may well believe he was. 

The Government, vvhich was resolved not to annoy the 
Duke, had decided to make sure of various concessions 
it was anxious to obtain by treating him in the most 
friendly manner. Buckingham was received with great 
courtesy : he had audiences with Louis XIII, with Marie 
de Medicis, and with Richelieu. The moment for which 
those in the secret longed was that of the meeting between 
the Duke and x\nne of Austria. 

It took place in the Queen's apartments in the Louvre. 
Buckingham knew beforehand that he would think the 
Princess charming. Anne of Austria, moved by what had 
been told her of the fascinating nobleman, and aware of the 
feelings he nursed for her, felt herself drawn towards him 
by a lively and inexplicable sympathy. When they found 

61 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

themselves together the result was that which might easily 
have been anticipated. "The Queen," writes La Roche- 
foucauld, "seemed even more charming to Buckingham 
than his imagination had painted her, and he seemed to 
the Queen the man in the whole world most worthy to be 
loved." By some spontaneous phenomenon, each recog- 
nized in the other a being whose heart overflowed with an 
infinite and mutual tenderness. "Buckingham," writes 
Leveneur de Tillieres," was seen by the Queen Regnant 
with a great joy, which was not only written on her face, 
but went straight to her heart." From that moment there 
was a sort of intimacy between them, as if they had known 
each other for years. And this intimacy, thanks to 
Buckingham's assurance and the Queen's inexperience, 
soon became familiarity. "From the very first day," says 
Leveneur de Tillieres, "the freedom between them was as 
great as if they had known each other for a long time. 
This was caused by Buckingham's boldness, and by the 
character of the Queen Regnant." There was some aston- 
ishment in Anne of Austria's circle. The Duchesse de 
Chevreuse calmed the Queen's mind, assuring her that 
when intentions were upright and behaviour irreproach- 
able, mere talk should not stir scruples of conscience which 
were devoid of any justification. "Certainly," adds M, 
de Tillieres, "this passion was perfectly harmless in its 
effects, but its appearances were anything but that, and in 
this matter the said Queen conducted herself as many other 
women have done, in the belief they have, and she herself 
thought she had, or assumed on the advice of others, that 
evil appearances are of little consequence, so long as the 
reality is good and innocent, and that if that was safe- 
guarded, God and the world would both be content — which 
I do not believe." Thus, according to Mme. de Chevreuse 
and M. de Tillieres, appearances only were wrong. After 
another, and a coarser fashion, the Princesse de Conti 
confirmed this impression when she declared that she would 

62 



BUCKINGHAM 

answer to the King for the Queen's virtue, depuis la 
ceinture jusqu'aux pieds. 

And indeed, the Hfe led by Anne of Austria in the 
Louvre was so busy from morning till night, she was so 
constantly surrounded by her many servants and her house- 
hold courtiers, she was so exposed to the general view, in 
that great apartment of hers on the first floor of the Louvre, 
next to the King's bed-chamber and his cabinet, that it 
would have been difficult for her to escape the watchful 
and curious eyes about her. Cardinal de Retz relates, in 
his Memoirs, a strange story, which he enlivens with some- 
what objectionable details, and declares he heard from 
Mme. de Chevreuse, of an incident said to have taken place 
between Buckingham and Anne of Austria in the garden 
of the Louvre, now known as the Jardin de 1' Infante. The 
Queen, so he avers, had appointed to meet Buckingham in 
this garden after nightfall. Mme. de Chevreuse accom- 
panied her to the place of meeting, and then retired some 
distance, leaving the lovers together. After a time she 
heard an unusual and curious noise, "as of a struggle," she 
ran forward, found the Queen in great agitation, and 
Buckingham on his knees before her. In a state of feverish 
excitement, Anne of Austria took her way back to her own 
chamber, angrily exclaiming that "all men were brutal 
and insolent." And next morning she sent Mme. de 
Chevreuse to ask the English Duke whether he was sure 
she ran no risk of giving a Dauphin, who would be no 
Dauphin, to France. 

This is not a likely story. Among all the spots in the 
Louvre which Buckingham and Anne of Austria might 
have chosen, had they desired to meet unseen, the very last 
would have been a corner overlooked by more than sixty 
of the palace windows — those of the King, the Queen, the 
Queen-Mother, the great officers of the Court, Anne of 
Austria's own Household, besides those of the much- 
frequented passage now known as the Galerie d'Apollon — 

63 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

whence the whole Court might easily have detected the 
Sovereign's misconduct. Besides this, Retz is the only 
writer who makes any allusion to the episode, and historical 
critics are agreed in the opinion that the Cardinal's story 
arises out of some confusion with an incident of a similar 
nature which others have related, and which seems to have 
taken place shortly afterwards, at Amiens. His version is 
a mere transformation, with aggravations, of what then 
occurred. 

During the very short time — not more than a week — 
Buckingham spent in Paris, the unceasing series of 
banquets, receptions and suppers offered to the English 
Minister certainly filled up all his leisure. Richelieu 
gave him a great dinner, about the splendour of which 
there was a world of talk. "All night long," says the 
Mercure, "the air was filled with the noise of cannon and 
mortar shots, and in the morning, with the story of the 
banquets given." 

A great concert was organized at the Hotel de Ram- 
bouillet in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, just next door 
to the Hotel de Chevreuse, at which the famous singer of 
those days. Mile. Paulet, sang before Buckingham. These 
gatherings must have been the only occasions on which 
the Duke can have contrived to meet Anne of Austria and 
approach her nearly. He did speak to her : we know he 
avowed his passion. The young Queen, in her agita- 
tion, did not know how to reply : Buckingham pressed her. 
She ended by giving him to understand that she did not 
regard him with indifference. In later days she was to 
confide to Mme. de Motteville that she had confessed to 
the Duke that "if it had been possible for a virtuous woman 
to love any man except her husband, he would have been 
the only one for whom she could have cared." She thought 
she had an inclination for him. The Duke, adds Mme. de 
Motteville, "was the person of whom I have heard the 
Queen speak in better terms than of any other. His suit 

64 



BUCKINGHAM 

had been received with a certain sense of satisfaction : the 
Queen made no secret of the fact." 

But in the midst of this Court crammed with idlers, who 
had promptly guessed what was going on — many had 
remarked and grasped the significance of certain gestures 
and glances, of asides that were far too confidential and 
talk that was all too tender — Louis XIII, the Queen-Mother, 
the Ministers, could hardly fail to be aware of that which 
formed the subject of every courtier's conversation. The 
King was deeply grieved. Cold and reserved by nature, 
he contained himself. But he resolved, in agreement with 
his advisers, to hurry Buckingham's departure from 
Paris. His decision met with universal approval. "No- 
body was able to conceal," writes Brienne, "the general 
satisfaction at the thought of being rid of the presumptuous 
foreigner, and sending him back to his own country." The 
Government at once evaded the settlement of the two 
questions which had formed the essential object of the 
English Minister's visit : the debate concerning the clauses 
of the marriage contract had caused some lively discussion, 
but however great the anxiety in Paris to oblige England, 
it was absolutely necessary that an end should be put to 
a state of things so painful for the King : the business was 
cut short. "The perpetual interviews and familiarities 
between the Duke and the Queen Regnant " were begin- 
ning to exceed the bounds. It was evident to every one, 
says Tilli^res, "that the Queen's affection was increasing 
day by day, and appearances were growing worse and 
worse, which enraged both the King her husband and 
the Queen her mother-in-law." Henrietta-Maria's de- 
parture was fixed for June 2, in the hope that "once the 
Duke of Buckingham had departed all these affections 
would die down." As a matter of fact, though Bucking- 
ham had been able to ascertain that the Queen nursed 
kindly feelings for him, he had not attained the full success 
for which he had hoped : there were too many obstacles in 
F 65 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

that overpopulated Court to permit of so private a meeting 
as that for which he longed. In the course of the journey 
to conduct the new Queen of England to Boulogne, amidst 
the chances furnished by traveller's lodgings, a more 
favourable opportunity might perhaps occur. 

According to the usual practice of the Court of France, 
the Royal Family was to accompany the young Queen as 
long as she travelled on French soil. Louis XIII himself 
was to go as far as Compiegne, the Queens — Marie 
de Medicis and Anne of Austria — and Monsieur, the 
King's brother, were to journey to Calais, and a bevy of 
French noblemen were to attend her to London. Precau- 
tions were forthwith taken to ensure that Anne of Austria 
and Buckingham should see as little of each other as 
possible, and that, when they did meet, the Queen should 
always be surrounded by a numerous court. On June 2, 
Henrietta-Maria, having bidden farewell to those she was 
to leave behind her, quitted the Louvre at five o'clock in 
the afternoon, carried in a litter covered with red velvet 
and gold embroideries, borne by two mules in red velvet 
trappings, and escorted by all the companies of the 
mounted archers of the city of Paris, by five hundred 
citizens, also mounted, and by all the officials of the city — 
the mayor, sheriffs, district police, for it was the privilege 
of the Paris burghers thus to escort any daughter of the 
Royal House who had espoused a foreigner and was about 
to quit the kingdom. Buckingham travelled with her. 
The Queens were neither of them present : they had 
already started by another route, attended by a numerous 
following of princesses, ladies, and court lords, mounted or 
in coaches. The two troops of travellers were not to meet 
till they reached Montdidier. Half-way to St. Denis the 
Parisians took their leave of the Queen of England; that 
night she slept at Stains, the next at Compiegne, and the 
third at Montdidier, where she was joined, on June 6, by 
Marie de Medicis and Anne of Austria: almost the whole 

66 



BUCKINGHAM 

of the Court was present ; the escort consisted of two com- 
panies of the Body-guard, strengthened by detachments 
from the Swiss Regiment of the King's Guard. Louis 
XIII had returned to Fontainebleau. 

The solemn entry into Amiens took place on the 7th. 
The King had given orders that the same honours were to 
be rendered to his sister as to himself. The Due de 
Chaulnes, governor of the province, was there to welcome 
the Princess, with all the nobility of the province, three 
hundred mounted gentlemen, about him. Five thousand 
armed burghers of the town of Amiens, divided up into 
companies, kept the road. The chief sheriff, garbed in a 
violet gown, harangued the Queen in the official terms 
habitual at that time. "Madam," he said, "when the sun 
rises, we see all things smiling upon us : a thousand gay 
colours adorn the sky, the birds pour out their little songs 
to greet his noble light, and the earth enamels her verdant 
bosom with a thousand flowers pearled with dew. So, too, 
when you do us the honour to come into this town, we open 
all its gates to you, and with them those of our eyes and 
of our hearts ! " To the sound of trumpets and drums, of 
cannonades and arquebusades, the procession passed into 
the town, and after a Te Deum had been sung in the 
cathedral, the Queen took up her lodging in the episcopal 
palace. 

Then there were merry-makings, balls, splendid banquets. 
Marie de Medicis fell ill— a cold, 'twas said — and the 
travellers stayed on. This delay filled Buckingham's 
heart with joy. 

He was more splendid than ever. Bois d'Annemets, 
who saw him just then, relates in his Memoirs that the 
Duke did all he could to dazzle men's eyes. "It must 
be acknowledged," he writes, "that he wore the finest suit, 
and the best chosen, that ever will be seen." The English 
Minister was always covered with diamonds and pearls. 
At the receptions and collations and great banquets his 

67 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

magnificence astounded every one who saw him. But 
all he had been able to snatch for himself was a word, a 
glance here and there, exchanged with the Queen. Was 
he to leave France with nothing more ? It was clear 
that stringent orders had been given to the people about 
Anne of Austria : Putange, her equerry, never left her ; 
La Porte, her "cloak-bearer," was always on the watch; 
ladies and servants were perpetually on guard around her. 
Mme. de Chevreuse and Holland were to provide the much 
desired opportunity. 

Anne of Austria was not lodged in the episcopal palace 
with her sister-in-law. She had been assigned a spacious 
dwelling with a good-sized garden which ran along the 
bank of the Somme. It was a very pleasant garden, and 
all the persons at Amiens connected with the Court knew 
it, and used to walk in it. One evening Mme. de Chev- 
reuse came to pay a visit to the Queen, and with her, 
Buckingham and Holland. The sky was clear and the 
air was balmy. Somebody suggested a walk in the 
garden. The Queen agreed. Buckingham led the Queen, 
]\Ime. de Chevreuse took Holland's arm. A few paces 
behind them came Putange, La Porte, and a few ladies. 
Holland and Mme. de Chevreuse, as though by accident, 
contrived to let Buckingham and the Queen out-distance 
them, while they held back the attendants. The spot was 
a lonely one. Buckingham spoke. He was tender, press- 
ing. Anne of Austria, frightened, stopped, and sat down. 
Her ladies joined her. After a moment, the Queen moved 
on again. Holland and Mme. de Chevreuse followed 
the same tactics. The moment was propitious : the half- 
solitude, the falling dusk, the emotion stirred in the young 
Queen's breast by a tete-a-tete, in the course of which 
Buckingham's declarations of adoration grew more and 
more fervent, threatened to end by moving her deeply. 
The Duke, bold as he was, fancied his hour had come. 
They were just at the corner of a wooded alley, hidden by 

68 



BUCKINGHAM 

clustering shrubs, nobody could see them. He ventured. 
What happened? 

There are two versions. According to Tallemant des 
Reaux and Retz — this last places the whole incident in 
Paris — there was a regular scene, and a violent one. But 
this story, a mere echo of the talk of courtiers, who em- 
broidered on their theme to their hearts' content, will not 
bear investigation. The Queen did, as a matter of fact, call 
out loudly, and at once, hearing her cry, everybody hurried 
to her. If she had not called out, her attendants were so 
near her that they must have come up with her before 
Buckingham could have put his design into execution. 
Thus, if she did call out, it was because she was not a con- 
senting party. In reality, La Porte, who was present. La 
Rochefoucauld, who had his information from witnesses of 
the incident, and Mme. de Motteville, to whom the Queen 
told the whole story, all agree in giving us an explanation 
which seems sufficiently satisfactory. 

"Favoured by the darkness," writes La Porte, "the Duke 
of Buckingham permitted himself very insolent liberties, 
and even went so far as to attempt to caress the Queen, 
who at once gave a shriek, at the sound of which every- 
body ran to her." "One evening," says La Rochefoucald, 
"when the Queen was walking in her garden, they found 
themselves alone together; the Duke of Buckingham was 
bold and enterprising, the chance was a favourable one, 
and he tried to take advantage of it in so disrespectful a 
manner that the Queen was forced to call out for her 
women." Mme. de Motteville reduces the episode to still 
more modest proportions. "A great deal has been said," 
she writes, "(about this scene,) but it was very unjustly 
spoken, for I know from herself (the Queen), who did me 
the honour of confiding it to me in the simplest way, that 
finding herself at the corner of an alley where a palisade 
might hide them from the public glance, the Queen, 
startled at perceiving that she was alone, and apparently 

69 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

worried by some over-passionate feelings on the part of 
the Duke of Buckingham, cried out, and calling her equerry 
to her, reprimanded him for having left her." Thus the 
nature of the scene is easily guessed; it was short, im- 
pudent, and commonplace. Its true commentary may be 
found in the rider added by the Princesse de Conti to her 
affirmation that she would answer to the King for his wife's 
virtue "de la ceinture aux pieds," to the effect that she 
would not undertake the same responsibility "de la ceinture 
en haut I " 

Buckingham's behaviour proves that he knew very little 
about Anne of Austria. Out of youthful curiosity and 
childish giddiness, out of the vanity and caprice of a pretty 
woman, the young Queen, whose life had hitherto been 
dull enough, may have let herself be tempted for a moment 
to feelings that were new to her, and to a closer inspection 
of a forbidden delight to which she was a stranger; but 
her sentiment, whatever it may have been, was so weak, 
she was so cold by temperament, her regard for her own 
dignity was so great, that the brutal reality of an ill-judged 
and far too sudden gesture was more than enough to recall 
her to a sense of what she owed herself, and to stir all the 
scruples dormant in her conscience. Buckingham had 
bungled ! 

When everybody, hearing the Queen's cry, rushed to 
her side, the English Duke seemed quite put out of counten- 
ance : the best thing he could do was to disappear : he 
stepped backwards, and was lost in the darkness. The 
people about the Queen asked questions. Anne of Austria, 
in her embarrassment, stammered this thing and that. A 
few words were exchanged, and then, by common accord, 
it was resolved that nothing should come out. The King 
must be kept absolutely in the dark. 

But in any case, Marie de M6dicis was told. The very 
first consequence of the adventure was that the Queen- 
Mother, on the plea that her own health was still bad, and 

70 



BUCKINGHAM 

gave no promise of immediate improvement, ordered Hen- 
rietta-Maria's immediate departure for Boulogne, under the 
escort of Monsieur only. On June i6, the Queen of England 
left Amiens. Anne of Austria was bound by etiquette to 
travel with her, in her own coach, two leagues out of the 
town. She accompanied her sister-in-law for the pre- 
scribed distance, and when she had reached the spot beyond 
which she was not to proceed, she bade her farewell. At 
that moment Buckingham approached her coach to take 
his leave. Anne of Austria, who had not seen him since 
the scene in the garden, treated him with great coldness. 
The Duke, deeply affected, bent forward between the 
curtains of the coach, as though he would have spoken a 
few words ; he was weeping, and strove to hide his tears. 
The Queen continued quite unmoved. The Princesse de 
Conti, who sat beside her, was to reproach her, later, for 
what she called her "cruelty." Buckingham bowed low, 
and departed, more in love than ever, bitterly grieved by 
his failure, humiliated by the thought of his own folly, and 
in despair at the idea of the dislike which he believed the 
Queen had now conceived for him. 

Henrietta-Maria and her train travelled by Abbeville 
and Montreux to Boulogne, where the Queen was to em- 
bark. There was a violent storm, and she had to wait, 
for the ships despatched by the King of England to carry 
over his bride had not yet come into harbour. A sloop 
conveying letters for the Court was anchored in the port. 
Mme. de Chevreuse and Holland suggested that Bucking- 
ham, under colour of treating some political matter with 
the Queen-Mother, might himself carry these despatches 
to Amiens. He would thus see Anne of Austria again, and 
his departure might perhaps have altered the feeling of 
that Princess towards him. The Duke took post-horses, 
and rode to Amiens without a stop. 

He waited on Marie de M6dicis. The Queen-Mother 
was still ailing, and in her bed. She received the English 

71 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Minister with some appearance of surprise. Buckingham 
explained the reason of his coming, and asked if he might 
pay his respects to Anne of Austria. The young Queen, 
who had been bled that morning and was likewise in bed, 
was extremely astonished. "Back again ! " she cried. "I 
thought we were rid of him ! " She sent word that she 
could not see anybody. Buckingham pressed his request. 
The Queen-Mother, he pointed out, had deigned to receive 
him while she was in bed. Mme. de Lannoy, the Lady of 
Honour, went herself to Buckingham to explain that "it 
would not be agreeable to the King that the Queen should' 
allow any gentleman to come into her chamber, she being 
in bed at the time." Buckingham appealed to Marie de 
M6dicis, and she, wearied by his persistence, replied to 
the objections put forward by Mme. de Lannoy, "Why 
not, after all ? I do it myself ! " There was nothing for 
it but to give in. Mme. de Lannoy took measures to ensure 
that the Queen's chamber should be full of people when 
the English Minister entered it. The Princesses de Cond6 
and de Conti were both of them beside her bed. When 
Buckingham came into the room, he advanced to the bed- 
side, fell on his knees, took the Queen's hand and burst 
into sobs. It was a painful scene. Mme. de Lannoy 
pointed out to the Duke that it was against the custom of 
the French Court for any man to speak to the Queen of 
France on his knees, and offered him a seat. Buckingham 
replied that he was no Frenchman, and was not bound by 
the laws of that kingdom. Anne of Austria remained as 
cold as ice. Everybody felt thoroughly uncomfortable. 
It was impossible that the interview should continue. 
The Duke retired, and took his way back to Boulogne, 
humiliated and sick at heart. He was resolved to find 
some pretext for returning to France at the earliest possible 
moment, even if he had to jeopardize and compromise his 
master's policy to do it. 

Meanwhile, and in spite of the good resolutions as to the 

72 



BUCKINGHAM 

complete silence to be observed, the story of the Queen's 
adventure, which every courtier was delightedly whispering 
to his neighbour, was handed on from one person to 
another till it reached Fontainebleau, and the King's ears. 
Mindful of his own dignity, Louis XIII held his peace. 
When Marie de Medicis became aware that her son knew 
all, she thought it her duty to undertake her daughter-in- 
law's defence. Nothing at all serious had taken place, she 
declared, and the King had no right to doubt the correct- 
ness of his wife's behaviour. "The Queen-Mother could 
not refrain from testifying to the truth, and asserting that 
there was nothing in the matter at all, and that even if 
the Queen had desired to do wrong, it would have been 
impossible, for there were so many people about her who 
watched her doings, and that it had not been in her power 
to prevent the Duke of Buckingham from feeling esteem 
and even love for her. She also quoted a number of 
incidents of a similar kind which had happened to herself 
in her own youth. These reasons, though they were 
unanswerable, did not extinguish the King's jealousy." 

But at all events, though Louis XIII did not choose to 
say anything either to Buckingham or to his wife, he did 
not intend to leave the persons who should have watched 
over the Queen, and whose carelessness had been the cause 
of the incident, unpunished. He struck at the male 
members of her Household. The Queen had been attended 
in the Amiens garden by Putange, her equerry ; La Porte, 
her "cloak-bearer; a gentleman in waiting, M. de Jars, and 
a servant of the name of Datel. On the morning of July 
20 — the two Queens had joined the King at Fontaine- 
bleau — the monarch's confessor, the P^re Seguiran, waited 
on iVnne of Austria, and informed her, in the King's name, 
that all the above-named persons were dismissed from the 
Court. The Queen was very much affected. She made 
no protest, she only sent the King a message to the effect 
that "she besought him to name all the persons he wished 

73 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

to remove from her Household, so that there might be no 
more of that kind to be done." She bestowed gifts of 
money on the dismissed persons, and before long she was 
to take fhem back into her service. 

As far as Buckingham was concerned, the King's mind 
was made up : never again was the English Minister to 
set his foot in France. Every effort the Duke made to 
attain this end v/as doomed to failure. Buckingham did 
all he could to win over Richelieu, who still continued to 
treat him with consideration ; but on this particular head 
Richelieu refused to attempt to alter the King's mind.' 
"Neither did Buckingham's departure diminish the feel- 
ings he nursed for the Queen Regnant," writes Leveneur 
de Tilli^res, "nor did his extravagances prevent him from 
believing he might get back into France and there assuage 
his passion. As he knew his only hope of obtaining this 
was to gain the support of the Cardinal de Richelieu, he 
paid him frequent compliments by letter, and the Cardinal, 
who was bent on carrying out his designs for ruining the 
Huguenots, would accept them, on some occasions, with 
great civility, but on others with hearty scorn." In 
November, 1625, when Buckingham had made a fresh 
attempt, the Secretary of State de la Ville aux Clercs wrote 
as follows to Richelieu, in the King's name: "The King 
continues to be of the same mind, and cannot consent to 
allow the Duke of Buckingham to come here." In the 
earliest days of the married life of the young English 
sovereigns, when a bitter quarrel marred the understanding 
between Charles I and Henrietta-Maria, that Princess, in 
great distress, expressed a desire to go to France and seek 
some consolation in her mother's arms. Buckingham 
announced his readiness to consent to her taking the 
journey, provided he himself attended her. And Louis 
XIII, so great was his dislike of seeing the man he 
abhorred, preferred to refuse his sister leave to visit him, 
under such an escort. A thousand shifts and subterfuges 

74 



BUCKINGHAM 

were planned by the Duke and Mme. de Chevreuse : on 
August 2, 1626, M. de Lamothe-Houdancourt, Grand 
Almoner to Henrietta-Maria in London, wrote to Richelieu 
as follows : " Pembrock tells me that it had been settled 
between Mme. de Chevreuse, the ladies (the Princesse de 
Conti and others), and the gallants (Buckingham and Lord 
Holland), that twice every year they would cross the water 
under pretext of settling the difficulties between the King 
and Queen of England, and that the Queen-Mother, 
in her fear that her daughter might be badly treated, would 
obtain this freedom for them. As they believe the Cardinal 
may cross their plans, they desire to bring about his ruin." 
Louis Xni was not to give in. Mme. de Chevreuse was 
to go on talking about Buckingham to Anne of Austria, 
and Holland was to continue expatiating on the subject 
of Anne of Austria to Buckingham ; but the lovers were 
never to meet again. Many observers held Buckingham's 
hostile attitude with regard to France in 1627, his alliance 
with the Huguenot rebels, and his descent on the lie de 
R6 to be the outcome of his personal spite. Mme. de 
Motteville insinuates that "he set up a quarrel between 
the two crowns solely to create the necessity for his own 
return to France to negotiate a treaty of peace." 

Meanwhile, at noon on Sunday, June 25, 1625, Queen 
Henrietta-Maria, who had been rejoined by Buckingham 
on his return from Amiens, embarked at Boulogne on 
board the great ship The Prince, which, attended by a 
splendid squadron numbering two hundred British sail, 
was to convey her to the English shores. In her marriage 
contract the number, rank and quality of her French attend- 
ants had been duly specified. Under the leadership of a 
Grand Almoner, M. de Lamothe-Houdancourt, Bishop of 
Mende, cousin to the Cardinal de Richelieu, a man still 
in the ardour of his youth, who was to correspond 
regularly with the Cardinal and keep the Court of France 
thoroughly well informed as to everything that happened 

75 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

at Whitehall, some two score ecclesiastics, gentlemen, 
secretaries, equerries, serving-men, musicians, and 
physicians, witli half-a-score of women — ladies-in-waiting, 
and waiting women — all of them of French nationality, 
were to travel to London with the young sovereign. They 
followed in her train. Besides these, there were three or 
four Ambassadors Extraordinary — Comte Leveneur de 
Tilli^res, the Comte d'Effiat, father of Cinq-Mars, the Due 
de Chevreuse, and, at a later date, Brienne. M. de Chev- 
reuse had been given his instructions. His mission was to 
secure the "satisfactory carrying out of the contract and 
of the marriage ceremony," which was to have nothing 
religious — that is to say, nothing Protestant — about it. A 
sprinkling of ladies accompanied the Ambassadors : the 
Comtesse de Tilli^res, the Comtesse de Sipierre, a charm- 
ing young creature who was to die very young and deeply 
regretted, and finally, the Duchesse de Chevreuse. The 
Duke had at first refused to bring his wife over with him. 
He declared she was in an interesting condition, and 
ought not to undertake the journey. But she wept so 
much and begged so hard that he had been obliged to give 
in. Holland never left her side. 

The ship on which Henrietta-Maria had embarked, a 
three-decker, "one of the greatest to be seen on the ocean," 
had been prepared for her reception with all the luxury 
known to that period : there w^ere three saloons all on the 
same deck, hung with "high warp tapestries, adorned with 
golden threads." Henrietta-Maria dreaded the thought of 
being sick at sea, and an "orchestra of lutes, viols and other 
delicate instruments " had been provided on board, to enter- 
tain her, and "prevent the inconveniences of the voyage." 
The crossing lasted twenty-four hours. When the ship 
hove in sight of the English coast at Dover, it was saluted 
by salvos of cannon ; the new Queen was greeted by the 
acclamations of the multitudes assembled on the shore, 
and the blaring of trumpets and bugles. She landed, and 

76 



BUCKINGHAM 

was received in a wooden pavilion, "wherein sweet scents, 
perfume-burners and odours of tiie most pleasing kind 
caused the too strong air of the sea to change, for her, into 
a pleasant softness." 

The next morning, at ten o'clock, Charles I arrived : 
"the flower of his nobility attending him." On the follow- 
ing day the young couple started for Canterbury, and 
thence they went to London. An epidemic was raging in 
the city, six hundred persons, it was said, dying there 
every day. The new Queen's solemn entry into her 
capital was hurried, and anything but brilliant. A special 
session of Parliament had been convoked to confirm the 
marriage arrangements, and on this occasion the King 
gave a great banquet, followed by a ball, at which M. and 
Mme. de Chevreuse were present. Then, on account of 
the sickness, Charles I retired to his palace at Hampton 
Court, outside London. He had assigned M. and Mme. de 
Chevreuse lodgings in Richmond Palace, about three miles 
away. 

The beginnings of the married life of the English 
sovereigns were anything but peaceful. The King's first 
interview with his wife had not produced an agreeable 
impression on him. She was thin and puny in appearance, 
with but little beauty about her. The meeting with her 
husband had been a great disappointment to the young 
Queen. She had taken her way to London in sadness and 
melancholy. Charles had lost his temper. Hard words 
had passed between the two. Buckingham had made things 
worse by insisting on his own wife, sister, and niece being 
placed about the Queen, instead of three of her French 
ladies : the Ambassadors of Louis XHI had interfered. 
The Queen, speaking of her husband to M. de Tillieres, 
told him that "with regard to his mind she had been 
deceived." She wept. And then Buckingham reproached 
her with being bad-tempered, and told her she must be 
merry with the King, or else she would be unhappy. 

77 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Everything suffered. The King of England, as though 
to atone to his people for having married a princess of a 
Catholic house, and permitted a Catholic bishop and bevy 
of priests to be about her, began to persecute the Catholics. 
This persecution was a contravention of the agreement 
entered into with the Court of France, and the Court 
of France protested against it. Louis XIII sent over M. 
de Blainville to express his displeasure, and Blainville was 
coldly received. Buckingham offered to go to France to 
arrange matters, and Louis XIII refused to receive him. 
The violence of the treatment meted out to Henrietta-Maria 
and to Catholics in England increased twofold. The 
Bishop of Mende writes to Richelieu in August 1625 : 
"We have no more bitter enemy than Buckingham: he 
tries to damage the Queen in the King's mind; and the 
Queen, on the other hand, does not do all she might to 
win over the King : she sees him not at all, or no more 
than she is obliged. Buckingham's spirit is an evil one." 
Attacks were made on the French attendants of the young 
Queen : the English fomented complaints against them, 
and especially against the ecclesiastics. The situation was 
growing very difficult. Sorely puzzled, the French Govern- 
ment, in its inability to discover any efficacious means of 
obtaining satisfaction, tried one shift after another. Riche- 
lieu wrote to the Bishop of Mende that he "wept tears of 
blood over the sad position of the Queen of England." 

Now, while Louis XIII did not know which way to turn, 
and while his Ambassadors in London, and notably M. de 
Chevreuse, were straining every nerve to discover some 
basis of settlement, Madame de Chevreuse was supply- 
ing the King of France, overwhelmed with annoyances 
already, with various other subjects of vexation and 
displeasure. 

Both the Duke and his wife had been heartily welcomed 
in London. When the King assigned them lodgings at 
Richmond, he also provided them with a town residence, 

78 



BUCKINGHAM 

Denmark House. The English were filled with admiration 
of the splendour of M. de Chevreuse. He sparkled with 
gems and diamonds, and never went abroad without "mules 
covered with the most splendid trappings that ever were 
seen." Great attentions were lavished on the Duchess. 
Her merriment and high spirits were immensely liked in 
a circle where the French of both sexes were otherwise 
but little appreciated. Lord Holland was constantly at her 
side. Thanks to the fashions then in vogue, when gowns 
were worn full and ample, draping the figure in their folds, 
the young Duchess was able to conceal her condition, which 
had indeed imparted a wonderful freshness and brilliancy 
to her skin. Buckingham was frequently in her company, 
and these three made up a little coterie of the most delight- 
ful kind, which grew more and more intimate as the days 
w^ent on. At last, people began to gossip. 

The Bishop of Mende, in his private correspondence, 
categorically accuses Holland of having permitted Buck- 
ingham to share the favours bestow'ed on him by Mme. de 
Chevreuse. "Mme. de Chevreuse," he writes, "is shut up 
for five or six hours every day with Buckingham : Holland 
has made over his prize to him." And indeed, Mme. de 
Chevreuse was to avow, in later years, that Buckingham 
had been very dear to her. Was the correspondence she 
kept up with Anne of Austria the cause of the English 
Mirtister's devotion to her? Or had her charm and her 
well-known easy sense of virtue inspired Buckingham with 
a fancy to number her among his many passing conquests ? 
It was a strange sight ! Then Holland suggested that 
Mme. de Chevreuse should go to his house to lie in : he 
himself, he declared, would only keep one small set of 
rooms for his own use. Mme. de Chevreuse was spending 
wrecks on end, at this time, in Buckingham's mansion, and 
wdthout her husband. M. de Chevreuse did not appear to 
know or understand anything of what was going on. On 
account of the strained relations between Buckingham and 

79 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Henrietta-Maria, Mme. de Chevreuse hardly ever appeared 
in the Queen's presence. She lived apart from all the 
French members of the Household. When she wrote to 
France, to Marie de M^dicis, she gave her none but 
excellent news of the royal couple. 

At last the Bishop of Mende, stung into anger, denounced 
the scandal caused by the misconduct of Mme. de 
Chevreuse and her husband's weakness, to Cardinal de 
Richelieu. "I am ashamed," he writes, "of the impudence 
of Mme. de Chevreuse, and of her husband's simplicity." 
He had endeavoured to prevent the Duchess from going to^ 
Lord Holland's house for her confinement. "Ashamed," 
he wrote, "of the fact that M. de Chevreuse was not 
(ashamed), I gave him to understand that it would give 
offence in Paris if she did not lodge in his own house. It 
is a public jest, and one which can only serve to dishonour 
the State. If it had been desired to ruin everything, 
nothmg worse could have been devised." The French 
Government had flattered itself that the English marriage 
and the conditions imposed in favour of the Catholics, 
amongst others the despatch of a body of ecclesiastics to 
London, would have done some service to the Roman 
Catholic Faith in England : truly the result seemed likely 
to be of a quite contrary nature ! " It seems," says the 
Bishop, somewhat coarsely, "as if these ladies had come 
over to establish brothels, rather than to serve religion ! " 
As for the husband, he was simply ridiculous. "M. de 
Chevreuse is playing a shabby part over here : it is a 
vexation to me that he should be the laughing-stock of the 
foreigners as well as of the French." 

These reports impressed Louis XIII and Richelieu in 
the most unfavourable way. The Cardinal's opinion was 
that Mme. de Chevreuse ought to be sent back to France 
at once. To this Charles I objected, on the pretext that 
the young Duchess was so far advanced in pregnancy as 
to be unfit to undertake so long a journey. The Bishop 

So 



BUCKINGHAM 

of Mende then reported that she was lodged in Lord 
Holland's house. "So great is the husband's weakness," 
he writes, "that one blushes for him." He adds that Mme. 
de Chevreuse was seeing a great deal of Mme. de Themines, 
and that both these ladies were holding long conferences 
with Dumoulins, the Protestant pastor, and that they eat 
meat in public on fast days. Did they mean to turn 
Huguenot ? What an example ! It was unendurable ! 
From Paris, Richelieu, in his rage, wrote in the most in- 
sulting manner regarding Mme. de Chevreuse. "When 
she does come back," he says, in one of his letters to the 
Bishop, "there will be no necessity for sending to fetch 
des guilledines from England ! " — an allusion to the class 
of persons sought after by men who couraient le guilledou. 
To Schomberg he mentioned her in still more scathing 
terms : "These English, whom we call bouquins (in France 
Buckingham's name was pronounced Bouquin quant), say 
we may well call them so, seeing some of them have 
bouquine une de nos chevres ! This billet will be seen, if 
you please, by no eye save your own ! " Mme. de Chev- 
reuse was to become aware of the language the Cardinal 
had applied to her: she never forgave him. From that 
moment there grew up between her and Richelieu a 
deep and bitter hatred, the effects of which were to make 
themselves felt till the mighty Minister was laid in his 
grave. 

The Duchess was brought to bed at Hampton Court, 
the palace of the King of England, of a daughter, who 
received the names of Anne-Marie, and was ultimately to 
become a professed nun, and Abbess of Pont-aux-Dames. 
By M. de Chevreuse, Marie de Rohan had daughters 
only : this Anne-Marie, born in 1625 ; Henriette, born in 
1631, who also became a nun, and Abbess of Jouarre; and 
Charlotte, who was born in 1627, was known as Mile, de 
Chevreuse, and to whom I shall frequently refer in the 
course of this work. If there were other children their 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

birth was necessarily concealed, and she bore them in 
secret : we find no trace of them in history. 

Once she was thoroughly recovered, Mme. de Chevreuse 
could find no excuse for remaining in England. A 
message from Paris warned her, and her husband too, that 
they must return forthwith. The Duke's mission was con- 
cluded : he asserted that the English Government had 
formally undertaken faithfully to adhere to every clause 
of the marriage contract. On the other hand, the violence 
of the epidemic which afflicted London had not abated : 
it was high time to get back to France. 

The departure of Mme. de Chevreuse was viewed with 
the deepest regret by the English Court. "We do not 
know where to begin," wrote Charles I to the Duke, 
"whether by thanking you for your company and that of 
my dear cousin your spouse, or by complaining against 
Fortune, who, after long feeding us with the hope of a 
lengthy enjoyment of your presence, and the pleasure of 
your good company in our rustic sports, has deprived us 
of that happiness by the call and necessity of business, 
and the accident of this infection. Our dear cousin carries 
back with her the satisfaction we lose by her return, and 
with it the honour, the respect, the prayers and good 
wishes of all sorts, not of our own Court only, but of all 
other persons who have had the honour of seeing her, or 
hearing others speak of her." 

Charles I also wrote to Louis XIII to thank him for 
having sent him Mme. de Chevreuse, and to sing the 
praises of the Duchess. " I would fain derive as happy an 
advantage from the return of our cousin the Duchesse de 
Chevreuse as you yourself have done by her coming here, 
the charms and perfections of which have so greatly in- 
creased and added lustre to the honour and favour you 
have been pleased to bestow on myself and my well-beloved 
spouse, that we feel ourselves in duty bound to express all 
the gratitude in our power for so singular an affection and 

82 



BUCKINGHAM 

favour, and also for the wisdom with which you made your, 
choice of a person in whom we have found so many causes 
of contentment and satisfaction : this it is which leads me 
to beg you to show me the kindness of assisting me to 
render her the honour and the thanks I owe her, for the 
great honour and felicity we have received through her, 
who now returns to you, well fitted to be the ornament of 
any place, and the very worthy pledge of our mutual 
affection." 

As a proof of his regard, Charles desired to make M. de 
Chevreuse a Knight of his Order of the Garter. The Duke 
took the precaution of requesting his King's permission to 
accept the honour. "You did wisely not to accept the 
Garter without my permission," replied Louis XIII on 
July 9, 1625 ; " I have laid the matter before the Senior 
Knights of the Order (of the Holy Ghost) : I give you 
leave to accept, on condition that the Garter is conferred 
upon you without any religious ceremony and independ- 
ently of any Church." Neither the oath taken nor the 
service promised clashed in any way with the statutes of 
the Order of the Holy Ghost. The Garter was duly 
bestowed, and a handsome gift of jewels along with it. 

On July 15, 1625, M. and Mme. de Chevreuse took their 
departure from London : two other French Ambassadors, 
d'Effiat and Brienne, travelled with them. The final inter- 
view of these two gentlemen with Buckingham took place 
at Richmond. "My lord," quoth Brienne, "I am not sur- 
prised that two of the greatest of our ladies should have 
fallen in love with you." The reference was to the Queen 
and to Mme. de Chevreuse. "It would have been difficult 
for me to gain the victory," replied Buckingham, "for I was 
nothing but a poor foreigner." "My lord," said Brienne, 
"it is the glory of our French ladies that they can stir love 
without accepting it, and if any of them cannot but accept 
it, their only care, when they bestow their good graces, is 
to be wooed by a gallant belonging to the Court, and not 

83 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

by a foreigner, who, in our country, is held to be no more 
than a passe-volant." ^ It was a "setting down" : Buck- 
ingham Hstened, and made no rejoinder. 

M. and Mme. de Chevreuse were civilly received at Court 
— they were of use there. Richelieu, in spite of his just 
anger against the Duchess, remembered she was the friend 
of Anne of Austria, of Charles I, of Buckingham : he must 
treat her with consideration. He was very polite. "The 
news of your generosity to their cousin, Mme. de Chev- 
reuse," writes Holland to Richelieu from London, "has 
been very agreeable to His Majesty and to the Queen : this 
is an action so noble that it adds to your own glory and 
serves those who serve you, for the whole of this Court, 
which has been honoured by the presence and the know- 
ledge of this lady, holds her as good as she is beautiful, 
her perfections walking equally, hand in hand." 

And still the discussions with the English authorities 
went on. The "solemn" promises given to the Due de 
Chevreuse as to the articles of the marriage contract had 
not been kept. There was now some question of driving 
all the French members of Henrietta-Maria's household 
out of the country, and Charles had just signed a merciless 
proclamation against the Catholics. For many reasons, 
the French Government did not desire to break off relations 
and declare war. There was nothing for it but to nego- 

' Under the old French Monarchy the great noblemen were colonels 
and owners of their regiments. They chose their own arms, uniforms, 
etc. Their obligation as regards the King only amounted, in time of 
peace, to keeping up the effective strength of the regiment to a certain 
minimum. This obligation, as a matter of fact, was not very strictly 
observed, and except in war time, the regiments were always far below 
their specified strength, and frequently mere skeletons. For this reason, 
whenever the King, through his military representatives or governors 
of provinces, or other deputies, ordered a review of any kind, the 
strength of the regiments affected was hurriedly made up by borrowing 
men from other corps, on the understanding that a like service should 
be rendered in return when the necessity arose, or by enlisting, for a few 
days only, any straggling trooper, or hired bravo, or good-for-nothing 
wandering fellow, on whom the colonel and his officers could lay their 
hands ; and these stop- gap soldiers were known as des passe-volants. 

84 



BUCKINGHAM 

tiate, and for that purpose "the best means of repairing 
the damage was to appeal to the private influence of 
M. and Mme. de Chevreuse." Cardinal de Richelieu kept 
M. de Chevreuse informed of the displeasure of Louis XIII 
as to the disregard of the promises given by the English 
Government : once, in a moment of irritation, the King 
had taxed the Duke and his wife with keeping up 
communications with England prejudicial to his own 
service and to the cause of religion. "As they had 
done the mischief," he went on to say, "he insisted on 
their applying the remedy." Richelieu had added, in 
conversation with M. de Chevreuse, "that he warned him, 
as a friend, that he had better see to the matter, otherwise 
the blame would be laid on him." Much abashed, M. de 
Chevreuse offered to send one of his friends, M. de Bautru, 
to London, to remind the English Government of the 
engagement into which it had entered. Bautru duly 
departed to London; to Charles I he pointed out that M. 
and Mme. de Chevreuse were being blamed for what was 
happening in England, and that if matters did not improve, 
the Duke and Duchess would both be obliged to retire from 
Court; to Buckingham he suggested, in the name of Mme. 
de Chevreuse, that he should himself come to France, to 
smooth over the various difficulties. In consequence of 
these representations, Holland and Carlton were despatched 
to Paris, to discuss the whole business : this was a result 
of a kind. 

While he was thus using the Duke in his dealings 
with England, Richelieu was endeavouring to employ 
the Duchess as his tool to work on Anne of Austria and 
Gaston, the King's brother. La Rochefoucauld declares, 
in reference to these attempts, that the Cardinal, aware 
of the hostile frame of mind, as to himself, in which 
the Duchess had returned from England, trusted her but 
a very little way ; Richelieu was right : the future was to 
prove it, and in cruel fashion ! 

85 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

Richelieu and Anne of Austria's Circle — The Ornano Plot — The activity 
of Mme. de Chevreuse — She appeals to Chalais — Chalais in love ; 
his arrest ; his death — Flight of Mme. de Chevreuse into Lorraine. 
1626. 

It was the peculiar lot of Cardinal de Richelieu to inspire 
not only the most unbounded devotion and the most ardent 
affection, but also the most implacable hatred. The merit 
— or the fault — that brought this about lay in his own 
character. His intelligence was transcendent, his feelings 
were most keen, and he inspired all who approached him 
with the liveliest admiration, to begin with, and fascinated 
them, in the next place, by his courteous manner, his eager 
politeness, and his great anxiety to please. But when he 
took action, the man was so positive and so resolute that, 
whether intentionally or not, he gave offence by the very 
harshness and severity of his will. His imperiousness made 
itself sharply felt. The tension of his mind alarmed those 
about him : he would stop at nothing to attain success, 
and thus inspired feelings of dismay. His one idea was 
to guide all the affairs of the country on continuous and 
rational lines, and his unswerving logic put the poor 
courtiers, with their futile and vacillating passions, quite 
out of countenance. Between him and Mme. de Chevreuse 
there was a radical divergence of temper. Even if the 
Cardinal had not offended her by his hard words, the 
Duchess would soon have become the great statesman's 
bitter enemy. 

In Lorraine she found a field ready for her operations. 
As Louis XIII, who had the gift of sound judgment, learnt 

86 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

to value Richelieu's talents more and more highly, his 
attachment to the exceptionally remarkable man, who, so 
he would declare, had been sent him by Providence, had 
deepened. But as Richelieu's credit grew stronger the 
inevitable consequence had made itself felt, and an opposi- 
tion had also grown up and was gaining strength. Louis 
XIII was known to be self-willed and harsh : people were 
well aware that he himself was generally responsible for 
the severe decrees issued by his Ministers; but as nothing 
could be done against His Majesty, a belief was simulated 
and disseminated that Richelieu alone was to blame : he 
became an object of general dislike. 

Nowhere was this animosity stronger than in Anne of 
Austria's own circle. The young lords and ladies, giddy 
and superficial every one of them, who clustered about "the 
little Queen," were even less able than most people to 
reconcile themselves to the Cardinal's severe and unbend- 
ing views. When Mme. de Chevreuse returned from 
London, she found the tone, when the Cardinal was men- 
tioned in Anne of Austria's household, was one of ridicule. 
And there was more than that. Ever since the Buckingham 
incident there had lingered in the Queen's heart — with the 
indignation caused by the Duke's imprudent behaviour 
and that continued stir in her sentimental existence of 
which he was the author, and which had really been very 
agreeable to her — a secret grudge against the King, who 
had been aware of what had happened, and in his inability 
to strike herself, had punished those about her; and above 
all, against Richelieu, who, when informed of the incident, 
had no doubt advised the monarch to take the measures 
he had adopted. The Queen's own courtiers had guessed 
the sovereign's prejudices, and her friends of the female 
sex, while they poked daily scorn at the Minister, would 
occasionally venture on a veiled allusion to the King his 
master. Mme. de Chevreuse returned just in the nick of 
time to transform a mere inclination into a living force. 

87 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Chalais wrote of her to Richelieu, "She has a bitter 
animosity against your person." Mme. de Chevreuse 
stirred up the Queen against the Cardinal. "She never 
ceased," writes Mme. de Motteville, "talking about him to 
the Queen. The mistress and her favourite both hated 
Cardinal de Richelieu, and nothing delighted them so 
much as to annoy him, all the more so because the Queen 
was persuaded that he made mischief about her with the 
King." Finding herself listened to, the Duchess went a 
step further. She ventured on attacking the person of the 
King himself : she pointed out the possibility that Louis 
XIII, with his delicate and uncertain health, might very 
likely die, and his brother Gaston would succeed to the 
throne. Why should not Anne of Austrita marry Gaston, 
then, and so continue Queen of France? The Queen 
lent an ear to these suggestions ; but such fancies would 
have remained buried in the secrecy of confidential inter- 
course if an unexpected series of favourable circum- 
stances had not given the audacious Duchess a chance of 
trying to realize them. Her love of intrigue and her 
constitutional impetuosity led her to engage in a wild 
conspiracy. 

Gaston, then Due d'Anjou, and later to become Due 
d'Orl^ans, was then a lad of seventeen. He was an inferior 
sort of fellow. His great staring eyes, pendulous lower 
lip, and perpetually open mouth gave him a far from intel- 
ligent expression. His character was considered anything 
but sympathetic : he was timid, lazy, fidgety, nervous ; he 
never could sit quiet, and was always making faces. 
Familiar, ill-mannered too, vain, insisting to the last tittle 
on the honours due to his rank, never allowing a woman 
to be seated in his presence, nor a man to speak to him 
save with uncovered head, he proved himself, as his con- 
fessor, the P^re de Coudren, described it, "both violent- 
tempered and debauched." Chalais, when he lay in his 
prison, was to say : " Monseigneur is, of all men, the most 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

frivolous. He is of small mind, and of no resolution : he 
has already lost the few servants he had by his own weak- 
ness." Later, when Anne of Austria's eyes had been 
opened, she was to reply scornfully to the King's reproach- 
ful accusation of having desired his death so as to marry 
his brother, that " she would have gained but little by the 
change." At the moment of which we write, Gaston was 
still young, there was some hope of improvement on his 
part; in any case, he was heir to the throne. The little 
Queen fell in with the plan suggested to her. From the 
confession made by Gaston to the King on August 2, 1626, 
it is clear that this plan had been mentioned to her by 
Mme, de Chevreuse even before 1624. And in 1625 came 
the announcement that Gaston was going to marry, and to 
marry Mile, de Montpensier ! This marriage would 
shatter all the cherished dreams ! 

It was Queen Marie de Medicis who desired the match. 
For years she had been working for it. Mile, de Mont- 
pensier, the only child of a Bourbon of the Montpensier 
branch, and the last of his line, was one of the richest 
heiresses in France. Marie de Medicis had made much of 
the mother, a Joyeuse. She had showered proofs of a 
touching affection on the child from her earliest years, 
calling her "my daughter." After having destined her to 
be the bride of a son born before Gaston, and who died 
young, after having even gone so far as to get the marriage 
contract signed, in 1608— a wonderful contract it was, with 
a list of all the splendid domains of the ancient family 
of Bourbon, the duchies of Montpensier, Auvergne, St. 
Fargeau, Combraille, Dombes, and Beaujolais — she had 
lost no time, when her elder son was taken from her, about 
arranging the same alliance for the younger brother. 
Gaston was then three years old, his betrothed was six. 
Since that time the Queen had waited patiently. But now, 
the young man having reached his seventeenth year, and 
the young lady her twentieth, she felt it was time to 

89 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

conclude the matter. Louis XIII, after some hesitation, had 
given his consent, and the news had been made pubHc. 

It came as a surprise. Everybody had known, of course, 
that such a project had been in existence, but it was 
believed to have fallen to the ground. In the absence of 
an heir, the families of Conde and Soissons had both con- 
ceived the hope of being some day called to the crown. 
They were sorely vexed : and the Comte de Soissons had 
made up his mind to marry Mile, de Montpensier into the 
bargain ! But of all the persons affected by the news, none 
was so severely hit as Anne of Austria. 

If Gaston married and had children, while she herself 
had none, how humiliating would her position be, and how 
diminished her importance ! What would become of her 
if the King were to die ? " Ah, the poor Prince ! " said 
Marsillac to Villelongue, "how badly is the King advised ! 
That a childless King of five-and-twenty should marry a 
brother of eighteen or twenty, who may have children 
within a year ! What harm may that not bring about ! 
And that poor Princess (the Queen) ! What is to become 
of her ? " 

Mme. de Chevreuse raised Anne of Austria's courage. 
Nothing was done yet, she pointed out : there was only 
one course open to her, the marriage must be opposed and 
stopped at any price. The best thing would be to persuade 
Gaston to refuse to marry ]\Ille. de Montpensier. " It is 
Mme. de Chevreuse," wrote Chalais to Richelieu, "who is 
the cause of the whole world's opposition to the consent 
(of Monsieur to the marriage), and she incited everybody 
to do harm to Mile, de Montpensier." It was necessary 
to find somebody with influence over Gaston sufficiently 
strong to carry him away. Mme. de Chevreuse addressed 
herself to the Prince's Governor, Colonel d'Ornano. 

Jean-Baptiste d'Ornano, a Corsican by birth, was the 
grandson of one Sampietro Bastelica, who had raised his 
fellow-countrymen in revolt against the Genoese, and the 

90 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

son of a certain Corsican called Alfonso and surnamed 
d'Ornano, who had come to France in the sixteenth century, 
had distinguished himself, been appointed Colonel of the 
Corsican bands, made a Marshal of France in 1596, and 
died in 1610. Jean-Baptiste, who was born in 1581, had 
succeeded his father in the colonelcy of the Corsicans ; 
his intelligence, energy and power of command had won 
him rapid advancement, he had been made a Councillor of 
State in 1610, Marechal de Camp in 1614, Lieutenant of 
Normandy in 1618, and in the following year, 1619, 
Governor to Gaston. Thanks to his prestige and his firm- 
ness of character, he had acquired great authority over 
the Prince, and was the only person able to lead him and 
make him do what he desired. 

To tell the real truth, Ornano cared but little about the 
Montpensier marriage. The Colonel's chief consideration 
was connected with the fact that if Gaston succeeded to 
the throne, he himself, his favourite and confidential 
counsellor would become the most powerful person in the 
realm. Till that time arrived, the absence of a direct heir, 
which had a singularly weakening effect on Louis XIII, 
proportionately strengthened the hand of Gaston, whom 
the King was fain to treat with great consideration. It 
was quite possible that, as the result of a series of 
internal complications, the King might be driven to resign 
his crown. Complications, therefore, should be regarded 
with favour. Ornano might at all events, by dint of creat- 
ing difficulties, make himself feared, and force the King 
into buying his temporary fidelity or submission by the 
bestowal of honours and dignities. 

Mme. de Chevreuse offered him the alliance of the Queen 
Regnant. Slhe proposed that he should foment a cabal 
between Anne of Austria and the heir to the throne, with 
a view to preventing the Montpensier marriage. The 
sovereign was sure to endeavour to procure peace by pay- 
ing off the conspirators. The risks were slight and there 

91 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

was profit to be made — past difficulties of the kind proved 
that fact. The offer was a tempting one, and Ornano 
closed with it. 

The ladies about the Queen, Mme. de Chevreuse, the 
Princesse de Conti, Mme. de La Valette (formerly Mile, de 
Verneuil), held long conferences with him. He was ill : 
they went to see him as he lay in bed, "which was of no 
consequence at all," says Fontenay-Mareuil, "because he 
was so ugly." Richelieu grew uneasy. His spies brought 
him warnings. To lay a finger on the Colonel was im- 
possible. So powerful was his influence with the heir to^ 
the throne that his master would not endure it. Richelieu 
suggested that the King should draw Ornano over to his 
side, and bind his hands, by conferring favours upon him. 
He was made a Marshal of France, and appeared grateful 
for the honour. He took the necessary oaths early in 
1626; and the Cardinal questioned him about Gaston's 
marriage, inquiring whether he had given the Prince any 
advice on the subject. The new Marshal replied that he 
never interfered in that matter, and left Monsieur to settle 
it as he chose. Some time afterwards Gaston asked to be 
admitted to share in the deliberations of the' King's 
Council. Louis XHI took this to be a move of Ornano's, 
destined to lead to his own admission to the Council 
Chamber, where the heir-apparent's confidant might en- 
deavour to exercise a preponderating action likely to end 
by creating a difficult situation. He refused. Gaston and 
the Marshal were both much annoyed, and Mme. de Chev- 
reuse took advantage of their vexation to lay a complete 
plan of campaign before Ornano, which was to be carried 
out in opposition to the Montpensier marriage, and would 
result in serious changes in the State, likely to ensure a 
great advance in the Marshal's own fortunes. Deliberately, 
Ornano entered on the adventure. 

Advised by him, Gaston made it known that he refused 
to accept the proposed marriage : the reason he put forward 

92 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

was not that he had "any aversion to the person of Mile, 
de Montpensier, but that he was afraid to bind himself." 
Then the Prince, with his habitual inconsistency, told 
Richelieu, when the Cardinal came to see him, that he was 
ready to marry if a fine apanage was secured to him. 
Ornano was on the watch. Mme. de Chevreuse scarcely 
left his side, Anne of Austria, in the shadow, was close on 
her heels. Later on the Queen was to deny any active 
participation in the business. When Louis XIII lay at 
the point of death she sent M. de Chavigny to "beseech 
him not to believe that she had dabbled in the Ornano 
afifair, or that she had ever had anything to do with the 
plan for her marriage with Monsieur." And the King 
replied sadly, " In my present state I am bound to forgive 
her, but I am not obliged to believe her ! " It did not prove 
a difficult matter to induce Gaston to change his mind once 
more. 

That done, the conspirators laid the foundations of an 
understanding with the grandees of the kingdom. At a 
later period Monsieur was to confess this, under cross- 
examination. "Monsieur," so runs the report, "acknow- 
ledged to his mother, in the presence of the Cardinal de 
Richelieu, that it was true that the Colonel had incited 
him to keep up habitual relations with as many as possible 
of the great nobility of the kingdom," Mme. de Chevreuse 
was busy too : she opened correspondence with the Prince 
de Conde, the Comte de Soissons, the Dues de Mont- 
morency and de Nevers, and even, to reach the Huguenots 
through her, with Mme. de Rohan. She found a ready 
and attentive hearing. Great lady as she was, the Queen's 
favourite, dealing with an affair in which Monsieur and 
Anne of Austria were both interested, and which was to 
involve a struggle with a too-powerful Minister, Mme. de 
Chevreuse was sure to find favourable ears. All these 
great lords knew, like Ornano, by their experience of the 
past fifteen years, how little danger there was about risings 

93 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

of this sort, and how much profit was to be made out of 
them. They sent rephes. JNI. de Nevers said that if war 
broke out he would raise troops in the province of Cham- 
pagne ; the Comte de Soissons promised 400,000 crowns on 
condition that Gaston made Mile, de Montpensier over to 
him ; Longueville undertook to bring 800 horsemen out 
of Normandy, and a group of smaller gentlemen, La Meil- 
leraye, Mauny, Guitry, Bertecheres; a force of from 500 
to 600 men should be raised in that province as well. 
Let Monsieur give the signal for revolt by his own sudden 
departure from the Court, just as Marie de Medicis had 
done at the time of the last rising. Of all these accomplices, 
the members of the Vendome family were the most eager. 
Cassar, Due de Vendome, and Alexandre de Vendome, 
Grand Prior of France, the natural sons of Henri IV and 
Gabrielle d'Estrees, had never loved Louis XIIL As 
children their disagreeable and quarrelsome tempers had 
rendered them the objects of the young King's dislike, 
and this antipathy had grown and strengthened with age. 
In the course of the inquiry which followed on the Ornano 
plot, a letter from the Due de Vendome to the Marshal was 
produced, which explained his reasons for joining the con- 
spiracy : he complained that "since the death of Henri IV, 
the King and Marie de Medicis had done him every sort 
of injustice," that they had tried to strip him and reduce 
him to a nonentity, and that he intended to defend himself; 
he added, and this flattered Ornano's secret hopes, "that 
the crown would look well on Monsieur's head." Four 
accusations were brought against the Grand Prior by his 
judges : that he had opposed Gaston's marriage, that he 
had openly professed his hatred for the King, that he had 
incited Monsieur to leave the kingdom, and proposed to 
play the Ministers an evil trick. The co-operation of the 
Due de Vendome was promised through his secretary, 
Dunault : he demanded that Gaston should leave the Court 
and proceed to Metz, Sedan, or the Havre, that if necessary 

94 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

he should "use threats and violence to Richelieu," and 
above all things, that he should take up arms. 

The great families of the kingdom were not the only 
persons to whom application was made. An appeal was 
addressed to foreign countries. This was no new fashion. 
In the course of the three-quarters of a century during 
which civil wars had been raging in France, the habit of 
asking for extraneous help had grown up. The feeling 
of the country was against the practice. "I think it a 
shameful thing for me," writes Alexandre de Campion, 
later to become the faithful friend of Mme. de Chevreuse, 
"to serve the King of Spain against my native country." 
"I cannot honourably serve Spain against my country." 
Gaston, cross-questioned by Richelieu on July 23, 1626, 
himself admitted the gravity of the act : " Monsieur said 
that the greatest fault he had committed had been to 
treat with foreigners." When the Cardinal told him, 
thereupon, that this fault on the Colonel's part con- 
stituted a capital offence, he openly testified that he knew 
it very well. But the answers came in from abroad : 
efficacious help was promised; Mme. de Chevreuse and 
Ornano did not hesitate. 

They entered into negotiations with England. Through 
Mme. de Chevreuse, Gaston was put into communication 
with the Earl of Carlisle. Monsieur's theory was that the 
King his brother treated him in a humiliating manner, 
that he did not give him his due, and tried to force him 
into a marriage he disliked. Guided by Bucking- 
ham, who sought to make every possible difficulty with 
France, Carlisle replied that he was to express the "annoy- 
ance with which it was realized that he was badly treated, 
and to assure him that if he would only make his views 
known, he would be served by England in whatever manner 
he might desire." Blainville, the French Ambassador in 
London, warned Louis XIH's Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs, on July 4, 1626, in these words: "The 

95 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Earl of Carlisle has reported Monsieur's discourse to him, 
which is so full of hatred and scorn for the King that, out 
of respect, I dare not write it." The Bishop of Mende 
wrote, for his part: "The King of England is expecting 
great results from the understanding between Monsieur 
and the Queen, and nearly the whole Court is conspiring 
in this design." The English Government, it must be 
said, was struggling at that moment with internal diffi- 
culties which made it far from easy for it to afford any 
really effectual help. It gave "fine hopes and promises." 

Gaston wrote letters to Savoy. In his cross-examination v 
he was to confess that "it was true he had written letters 
to Piedmont." The Duke of Savoy, who was watching 
the complications in French politics in the hope of snatch- 
ing some addition to his own territories, replied that he 
would send ten thousand men. 

Negotiations were opened with the Ambassador of the 
United Provinces, Aarsens, but he avoided replying — he 
had no faith in the business. The conspirators applied to 
the Nuncio, and tried to win him over : to the Spanish 
Ambassador as well. Gaston declared he had "tried in a 
general way to make himself as many friends on every side 
as he could get." 

Thus the plot was being gradually organized. And the 
conspirators began to discuss the details of its execution. 
According to the confession made by Gaston to the King 
on July 12, 1626, it was arranged that advantage was to be 
taken of the King's absence in a distant province to raise 
the people of Paris, and take possession of the fortresses 
of Vincennes and the Bastille. If, as was most probable, 
the King hurried up with his troops, Monsieur was to fly 
to Dieppe or to the Havre. The Protestants of La Rochelle 
had offered to receive him in their town, but Gaston, advised 
by two of his confidants, Bois d'Annemets and Puylaurens, 
had refused the invitation. As the Due de Longueville, 
Governor of Normandy, was his adherent, Dieppe or the 

96 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

Havre would be safe refuges for him. In case there should 
be any failure in that quarter, Gaston wrote, or was made 
to write, to the Due d'l^pernon, Governor of Metz, and 
deputed the Abbe d'Obazine to beg he would open the gates 
of the city to him. Everything was being set in order. 

The Vendomes, on their side, were hoping to get some- 
thing out of the adventure. The Duke, who was Governor 
of Bretagne, had long dreamt of setting up an independent 
government in that province. He had been paving the 
way, gaining over the local nobility, bestowing pensions 
and gifts of money, "seeking the favour of the people by 
every means which seemed to him likely to make him 
popular." The accusation against him, as it was eventu- 
ally formulated, runs as follows : "M. de Vendome's inten- 
tion of making himself the sovereign of Brittany is 
apparent by various conjectures and various actions, for 
which he deserves to be called a madman." He, too, recog- 
nized the possibility of the disappearance of Louis XHI. 
The persons about him, his family, his brother, stood on no 
ceremony whatever : they all talked openly of the King's 
eventual deposition. And why should not a Vendome, own 
son of Henri IV, ascend the throne ? And if the King con- 
tinued to hold out, what was there to prevent an end being 
put to his resistance by putting him out of the way? "The 
whole family," so the document concludes, "has been very 
free in its criminal talk against the person of the King. 
One said a Louis had been deposed once before, another, 
that bastards had reigned just as well as kings born in 
wedlock, another, that he would rather hang the King than 
let the King hang him." 

Here we reach the most serious point of the whole plot. 
Was there really any idea of deposing Louis XIII, or of 
putting him to death? The King and Richelieu both 
believed it. "The vile attempt against the King's person," 
writes Richelieu, "has been confirmed, in the first place, by 
Chalais, who formally confessed that Mme. de Chevreuse 
H 97 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

nursed a special hatred against his Majesty." Dunault, 
secretary to the Grand Prior de Vendome, told the Sieur 
du Fosse, in the presence of Mme. d'Elbeuf, that his 
master "begged for mercy, and acknowledged his two 
separate undertakings against the King's person and the 
State." Bullion reported to the King, on October 17, that 
"nothing was expected in Savoy save an absolute change 
in the State, to the prejudice of the person of the King, 
whom it was proposed to shut up." And the Cardinal 
repeats his assertion elsewhere: "Two persons of quality 
revealed to the King that there was a design to cast hira 
down and lift Monsieur up. Confessors at the Jubilee 
reported that penitents had applied to them, accusing 
themselves of a great plan and party to elevate Monsieur 
at the King's expense." And Louis XIII, in his public 
declaration of August 5, 1626, which instituted a court of 
criminal justice to try the conspirators, affirms that he 
has "received notice of several conspiracies against our 
person and our authority." Richelieu thus concluded : 
"Here is the most fearful conspiracy ever mentioned in 
history : if this be so on account of the multitude of 
plotters, it is yet more so because of the horribleness of 
their design — for this design was not only to lift up their 
master (Gaston) above his proper condition, but to lower 
and destroy the sacred person of the King." 

As a matter of fact, an examination of the evidence does 
not permit us to reach so decisive a conclusion. When 
Du Fosse and Dunault were confronted with the Vendome 
brothers, and asked to repeat their asertions, the Grand 
Prior did not acknowledge the truth of what Dunault 
had said as to a design on the King's person. "My 
friend," said he to Dunault, "you have said a thing which 
will bring you into trouble, and me too." The judges 
followed up the track of certain compromising remarks in 
the hope of getting at their origin, but the results attained 
were exceedingly nebulous. When Chalais was cross- 

98 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

questioned, and even threatened with the torture, he denied 
having "ever heard anybody mention, or known of the 
existence of, any plan to touch the King's person, or of 
any evil talk against his said Majesty." He repeated that 
"he had never heard the King's person mentioned." And 
Gaston's favourite, Bois d'Annemets, enters an indignant 
protest in his Memoirs : " It is so great a wickedness to 
accuse Monsieur of having desired to have the King killed, 
that the mention of it fills me with horror." La Roche- 
foucauld comes to the conclusion that the "crime was not 
fully proven," and he is right. Mme. de Chevreuse, 
Ornano, and their confederates do not seem to have deliber- 
ately planned an attempt on the King's life. In their 
private conversations the eventuality of the King's dis- 
appearance by deposition or otherwise was no doubt 
discussed; but the idea never assumed any definite shape, 
and no steps were taken for its realization. The Vendome 
family certainly indulged, in the presence of other persons, 
in imprudent language, which was reported to the King 
and stirred his fears. Further than this the matter does 
not seem to have gone. 

It was towards the beginning of 1626 that the King and 
Richelieu became fully aware of the plot that was hatching. 
At first Louis XIII paid no attention to the warnings. 
Then things began to look threatening, and Ministers grew 
uneasy. No violent measure could be taken against 
Ornano. He ruled Gaston so completely, and was so well 
guarded, besides, that it was difficult to take any step 
regarding him without causing serious complications. He 
was privately warned that he must be careful, that the King 
had his suspicions, that he had better clear things up 
with His Majesty. He boldly replied that he would see 
about it in a month. And then, scorning the danger, or 
else desiring to aggravate matters so as to force on the 
wished-for rupture, he had Monsieur's request to be admitted 
to the Council Board renewed : with the addition that 

99 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Monsieur demanded an apanage of 500,000 livres a year as 
well. Mme. de Chevreuse, on her part, announced in die 
Queen's circle that a demand was to be made for the 
Marshal's own nomination to the Council — this, she 
declared, would make the Government's decision clear. 
The conspirators' course was taking definite shape. 

Louis XIII summoned Richelieu and Schomberg to 
Fontainebleau, and the three sat in council. The proofs 
of the conspiracy were absolutely clear, so the two Ministers 
asserted. It was for the King, "by his own will, to see 
what it pleased him to do, and for his servants to carry* 
it out." Two lines might be taken, so Richelieu explained. 
To exercise caution, to win over the conspirators by 
dignities and favours — -which, it must be acknowledged, 
had not as yet succeeded very well, or to remove all the 
guilty persons from the vicinity of Monsieur— and this 
last course needed serious consideration, for Monsieur 
must not be allowed to flee from the Court. Louis XIII 
said he would think it over. Thereupon came a report — 
false or true, we know not — that the Vendome brothers, 
taking advantage of the fact that Richelieu, who lived at the 
Chateau of Fleury, was in the habit of crossing the forest, 
with but scanty attendance, to sit at the King's Council 
Board at Fontainebleau, intended to waylay the Cardinal 
and kill him. Louis XIII ordered a troop of cavalry to 
escort his Minister's coach, and then he made up his mind. 

On the plea of manoeuvres to be performed in his pre- 
sence, he summoned his regiment of French Guards to 
Fontainebleau. On the day of its arrival. May 4, 1626, 
and after it had occupied the Castle, he sent to his brother's 
Governor, desiring him to wait on him after supper that 
evening. At ten o'clock Ornano made his appearance at 
the door of the King's Cabinet : he was placed under arrest 
by a captain of the Guard, M. du Hallier. Resistance was 
out of the question. The Marshal was taken to the Castle 
of Vincennes and imprisoned there. 

100 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

There was a great to-do, Gaston hurried to the King's 
chamber. He wanted to see the King, he wanted to see 
the Queen-Mother. He was not admitted. The next 
morning he saw the Chancellor d'Aligre, and angrily de- 
manded an explanation. D'Aligre replied that he knew 
nothing about the matter. Monsieur wandered to and fro, 
not knowing what to do next. Very soon, by his brother's 
command, he was to sign a declaration in which he cast 
off all his accomplices, and swore fidelity to the King, 

In Anne of Austria's rooms there was general consterna- 
tion. One witness, who saw Mme, de Chevreuse at that 
moment, said of her (with a thrust at her easy virtue) : 
"I thought there could not be a man left in the kingdom, 
so deep was the dejection written on her features and her 
countenance ! " For six whole days she stayed shut up in 
her rooms, terrified, expecting to be arrested every moment. 
Then, as time went on, and the danger seemed to pass 
away, she gathered courage again. Louis XHI had no 
proofs against her, he could not well put her in prison : 
such a measure would rouse the wrath of great and power- 
ful families, whom it would be as well not to disoblige at 
such a moment. The instant she thought herself safe she 
began to plot again. Ornano must be delivered, at any 
cost, and the enterprise must be carried on. To secure 
her hold on Gaston, now his Governor was lying in prison, 
she turned her attention to M. de Chalais. 

Henri de Talleyrand, Marquis de Chalais, third son 
of Daniel de Talleyrand and Jeanne de Monluc, was a 
youth of eighteen, well-built, pleasant-looking, "skilful in 
exercises of every kind," so Fontenay-Mareuil informs us; 
and the charm of whose manner had won him many suc- 
cesses among the ladies of the Court. He was well- 
received in every quarter. In his infancy he had been 
placed about the person of Louis XIII as a "child of 
honour," and he had grown up in close intimacy with 
the King and with Monsieur. His mother left no stone 

lOI 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

unturned to secure his future. As soon as he reached 
man's estate she purchased him the post of Keeper of 
the King's Wardrobe. "It had cost her the greater part 
of her fortune, and left her with hardly anything to live 
on." But what would she not have done to advance the 
fortunes of the son she loved so tenderly ? Thanks to the 
good offices of the Due de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry to 
His Majesty, she had married him to a rich wife ; Chalais 
had espoused the widow of the Comte de Charny, Charlotte 
de Castille, sister to the Treasurer Jeannin de Castille, an 
opulent financier. Thus he had everything, both dignities 
and riches. His post as Keeper of the Wardrobe gave 
him access to the Sovereign, he was "one of the King's 
servants," had his master's ear, was constantly in the 
company of Monsieur, and from every point of view, a 
prominent personage. 

Unfortunately, so far as intelligence and character 
were concerned, he was a poor creature, vain, superficial, 
unconscientious, weak. We possess the letters he wrote 
from his prison : they are a medley of undignified self- 
abasement and tasteless pleasantries, supplications for 
mercy, offers to betray anybody and everybody so long as 
he himself may escape, denunciations, retractations, tears. 
There can be no excuse for him, save his youth, his lack 
of experience, and, no doubt, the distractingly difficult 
position in which he found himself. 

If Mme. de Chevreuse cast her choice on him it was 
certainly because he was in love with her. His venal 
marriage had soon lost its hold on his heart. He threw 
himself with the greatest ardour into the passion with which 
the Duchess had inspired him. "He was passionately in 
love," writes Bois d'Annemets. " His attachment to Mme. 
de Chevreuse was something extraordinary," affirms La 
Rochefoucauld. He was observed following the fair lady 
whithersoever she went, "to the churches, to the public 
promenades, and more especially to the Chapel of the 

102 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

Louvre." He made a boast of his adoration. At his trial 
one witness deposed that "he had heard the said Chalais 
declare a hundred times over that he was in love with 
Mme. de Chevreuse and that he had the most beautiful 
mistress in the whole kingdom." Chalais was to reiterate 
the fact of his love for her to Richelieu : he was to speak of 
Mme. de Chevreuse as "that person whom I was known 
to have loved." 

It would appear certain, in spite of Mme. de Motteville's 
assertions, that Mme. de Chevreuse did not respond to this 
passion : she did not love Chalais, and she did not yield 
to his prayers : the letters the unhappy man wrote from 
his prison prove this fact. But when Ornano was arrested, 
the Duchess perceived the advantage to which she might 
turn his adoration. Chalais, thanks to his post, was in a 
position to discover the intentions of the Government; 
being Gaston's friend, he might be able, just when Mon- 
sieur, all astray, knew not in whom to confide, to gain 
an ascendency over that Prince and lead him as the Marshal 
had led him. She resolved to make the attempt. 

She pretended to accept the young man's adoration, 
she let him hope, and practised her arts upon him. As 
Chalais wrote to Richelieu, some time later : " I was in 
love with her : she did all she could to make me think she 
was well pleased it should be so." He was taken in, he 
allowed himself to be persuaded, they made him do what- 
ever they wanted done. A bargain was struck : the 
Duchess was to accept the young man's homage, and he, 
in return, was to do his best to lead Monsieur according 
to the directions that were to be imparted to him. "This 
little bargain," wrote Chalais to Richelieu, "was very like 
those a man makes with the devil. She told me that if I 
gave myself over to her utterly she would scorn all the rest 
of the world. I replied that her good will would be very 
dearly bought. I failed in judgment. But I swear before 
God that, though I was well aware of the faction, I never 

103 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

was its counsellor. It is very difficult not to be deceived 
by such devilish artifices ; for who could escape a Princess 
so kindly looked upon at the Court of two of the greatest 
Queens in the world, whose commerce is so easy, and her 
rouge so well laid on ? " Chalais pleaded extenuating 
circumstances, but in reality he gave way readily enough. 
Mme. de Chevreuse left no stone unturned. To excite his 
feelings against Richelieu, she went so far as to tell him 
the Cardinal was in love with herself, and consequently his 
rival. "When this Lady Lucretia spoke to me about this 
business," writes the young man to the Cardinal, "I had 
never failed in my service to you, and v.'hen she saw that 
I thought her proposal a dangerous one she tried to work 
round me from a different direction, telling me you were 
in love with her, and so to arouse my jealousy." What 
Chalais does not add is that he was all the more willing 
to be persuaded because he had a grievance of his own 
against the Ministers. He thought the two or three 
services he had rendered them had not received a sufficient 
reward. Certain astrologers and diviners who had cast 
his horoscope had told him he would be fortunate and 
powerful, or else, indeed, most unhappy : full of faith in 
the earlier part of this prediction, he fancied he now saw 
his chance of winning fortune, and made his venture. 

If he was over-confident, Mme. de Chevreuse was hardly 
less so. It was an imprudent proceeding on her part to 
address herself to a young man of whom she knew scarcely 
anything, a youth so inconsistent and so devoid of strength 
of characf^r. Chalais had given her a sample of his real 
nature when he came and acknowledged to her, as 
Bassompierre asserts, that it was he who had warned the 
Government of the Due de Vendome's plan to attack 
Richelieu on his way from Fleury : he explained to the 
Queen and the Duchess that when he had mentioned 
the secret to the Commandeur de Valen^ay, Achille 
d'Etampes, that officer had threatened to denounce him to 

104 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

the Ministers unless he went and reported the matter to 
them himself; but he begged the ladies to calm their 
minds, since his confession would be regarded as a proof 
of the straightforwardness of his character. And then, 
added Chalais, at his trial, "the ladies spent the whole 
afternoon, when dinner was over, laughing over the story 
of this affair." 

Chalais opened his campaign. Fie spoke to Monsieur, 
he entered into an understanding with the Prince's imme- 
diate circle : Bois d'Annemets, who was a member of it, 
tells us that these overtures were at first somewhat coldly- 
received. But Chalais was Keeper of the King's Ward- 
robe, he was in a position that ensured him the sovereign's 
ear : it was only wise to treat him with consideration ; 
and then the new recruit did possess a certain value : he 
obtained a hearing. To Monsieur himself Calais 
addressed the most fervent protestations of devotion. 
Gaston told Louis XIII that the young courtier even 
offered to sell his post about the King, so as to be more free 
to serve his brother. The conspiracy, which had been 
paralysed for a moment by Ornano's arrest, began to lift 
its head once more. The Government was warned afresh. 

Richelieu's first advice, as in the Marshal's case, was to 
try and win Chalais over. He might then be used to 
betray his accomplices. Advances were made to the young 
man. Much flattered, and thinking he would thus rise 
sooner and higher in the King's service, Chalais unhesitat- 
ingly accepted these proposals. The Commandeur de 
Valengay acted as intermediary. According to Fontenay- 
Mareuil, Chalais sent word that "if he was given some- 
thing considerable he would get the marriage accepted, 
and anything else that was desired." His hand was 
trumped already. Richelieu offered him a post as Maitre 
de Camp in the cavalry, to which he was to be appointed 
as soon as Monsieur was married. Chalais sent his 
acceptance of the bargain. 

105 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Meanwhile, and as a corollary to the imprisonment of 
Marshal d'Ornano, Louis XIII decided to arrest the 
Vendome brothers. The thing would have to be carefully 
done; the Due de Vendome was fortifying his position in 
Brittany; he had openly declared he hoped he might never 
lay his eyes on the King again. Without a word of what 
he meant to do, Louis XIII left Paris, started for Brittany, 
and got as far as Blois. The Grand Prior took alarm, 
interfered, tried to induce his brother to come and wait on 
the King, and besought the sovereign to receive him. 
Louis refused. The Government began to collect troops, 
the situation became threatening for the Vendome family. 
The two princes, thoroughly frightened, decided to proceed 
to Blois. They reached that town on June 1 1 : on the 
1 2th they were both in prison. 

This arrest produced the same effect as that of Ornano ; 
but it was less unexpected. Mme. de Chevreuse, who had 
received a warning of it, despatched a lackey to the Grand 
Prior, to advise him not to come to Court. As soon as 
the brothers arrived at Blois, Gaston sent them word that 
"they were very wrong to come to the King." But the 
event was calculated to cause Mme. de Chevreuse the most 
acute alarm. What was Chalais doing? What effect was 
he producing on Monsieur ? It was given out that Gaston 
had now decided to agree to the marriage. The King, it 
was said, was resolved to have Mile, de Montpensier 
brought to Blois forthwith, and have the betrothal formally 
celebrated : the Marquis de Fontenay had departed to 
Paris with orders to bring the Princess back, under the 
escort of fifty mounted men. And as a prologue to the 
marriage ceremony, the Due de Vendome and his brother 
were to be put in prison. Was Chalais playing a dis- 
honest game ? Or was he powerless ? 

The fiuchess questioned the young gentleman : Riche- 
lieu had bought him over, there could be no doubt about 
it. She was not dismayed, she meant to win him back. 

io6 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

Convinced, writes Fontenay-Mareuil, "since the imprison- 
ment of Messieurs de Vendome, that there was an under- 
standing between Chalais and the Cardinal de RicheHeu, 
she cast so many reproaches on him, and pressed him so 
hard, that he preferred failing the Cardinal and himself to 
failing her, and thus, having caused Monsieur to change 
once more, as well, he made him more rebellious than ever 
against the marriage." Once again Chalais had been 
turned round, and Louis XIII and the Cardinal, when 
they knew it, conceived a bitter animosity against the 
youth. The Cardinal cross-questioned him, and he, 
greatly embarrassed, answered in vague phrases, affirming 
his fidelity. The Minister ordered him to keep his 
promises, and he, so that he might boast later to Gaston 
of his devotion to him, evaded them. "The poor man," 
writes Bois d'Annemets, "tried to find his advantage with 
every party. He promised the Cardinal wonders and then 
came and told us the very opposite." 

While this was going on, Mme. de Chevreuse decided 
that Gaston must fly at once. There had been some idea 
of sending the Prince to La Rochelle, but on reflection 
it was thought wiser for him to go eastward, so as to be 
near Lorraine, where the fugitive was sure to find a refuge. 
Chalais carried out the orders given him by the Duchess; 
he sent a gentleman who acted as his equerry, Gaston de la 
Louvi^re, to Sedan, with a letter to the Comte de Soissons. 
La Louviere came back without any answer : he had been 
shown the door ! Then Chalais sent the same equerry to 
Metz, with another missive addressed to the Governor of 
that town, M. de la Valette, son of the Due d'Epernon. 
" If you are disposed to entertain proposals from Mon- 
sieur," it ran, "I will undertake to have them made to you." 
M. de la Valette told M. de la Louviere that "he was sup 
prised that Chalais, who belonged to the King's Houses 
hold, should mix himself up with such matters. He had 
no power over the town of Metz — it was his father who 

107 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

commanded there : let them apply to the Due d'Epernon." 
Both attempts had failed ! 

The Government was on the watch. It was remarked at 
Blois that Chalais, who was lodged in the Castle close to 
Gaston, went to the Prince's chamber every night, and 
spent whole hours with him. Louis XIII decided to leave 
Blois. On June 27 he was at Tours, and thence he travelled 
to Nantes. Mile, de Montpensier was expected. Richelieu 
kept telling Chalais that the King called on him to per- 
suade Gaston to agree to the betrothal. Chalais shifted 
this way and that. He ended by declaring he was no 
longer in a position to keep his promises, and took back 
his word. But at the same time, feeling the ground 
crumbling under his feet, and convinced that his only 
hope of escaping from his difficulties was to take to flight 
himself, and make Gaston fly as well, he made his 
preparations. 

His first idea was to make a sudden start, with the 
Prince and five or six gentlemen, "on swift horses"; but 
there could be no doubt, unluckily, that the party would 
soon be caught. He decided that a more prudent course 
would be to ride quietly out of Nantes on pretence of some 
excursion, as to Ingrandes, for instance. Once that far, 
they could have the King informed that Monsieur, not 
feeling himself safe at Nantes, was returning to Blois, and 
that done, they would gallop as. fast as their horses could 
carry them to Chartres, and on to Paris. The day of 
departure was fixed, and then everything fell through, 
because, so Gaston asserted under cross-examination, "the 
maitres d'hotel had not had their dinner " : the real 
reason was that the Government, duly warned, had sent 
companies of light horse along the roads to stop the 
fugitives. Chalais looked about him for some other plan : 
in any case, flight was an imminent necessity. 

Thereupon Louis XIII told his Ministers that he was 
worn out by the behaviour of the Keeper of his Wardrobe, 

108 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

and intended to have him arrested fortliwitli. Tiiis was 
on July 8. At daybreak on the 9th, M. de Tresmes, 
Captain of the Guard, proceeded to Chalais' room in the 
Castle of Nantes and took him into custody. He made 
no resistance. He was made over to an Exempt of the 
Body-guard,^ and shut up in one of the Castle dungeons. 
A Commission of judges was appointed, and charged, so 
ran the royal decree which called it into existence, with the 
duty of inquiring into the accusation of high treason 
brought against Chalais. This trial was not to be mixed 
up with that of Ornano, who was still lying in prison at 
Vincennes, and whose condemnation had been delayed by 
various political considerations. The magistrates were to 
proceed diligently about their business. 

That very day the Commissioners, d'Effiat and 
Valen9ay, proceeded to interview Chalais in his prison. 
He, quite crestfallen, only answered that he had never 
failed in his duty to the Iving, and that if it was desired 
to make use of him with regard to Monsieur's business he 
was ready to reveal anything and everything. The court 
began to hear witnesses, the prisoner was confronted with 
them : Richelieu took a hand in the cross-examination. 

The accused man's behaviour was pitiful. He wrote to 
everybody, and his letters proved him foolish, terrified and 
worthless. He besought the Cardinal to get him pardoned, 
praised the King's virtues in the most exaggerated terms, 
loaded Richelieu with heavy and pompous flattery : he ran 
down all his friends of Gaston's set, vowing they were 
"great disturbers of heaven and earth," who were only fit 
to ''danser, bailer, et coucher ensemble"; he denounced 
their plots against Richelieu's life, telling the Cardinal 
about "all the great dagger-thrusts that were meant for 

^ The " Exempts " of the Guard, under the old French kings, performed 
certain police duties. They were half soldiers and half poHce officers. 
A prisoner condemned to the Bastille was conducted there by one or 
more exempts, who also had charge of prisoners when they were moved 
from place to place, and kept order at executions. 

109 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

you " ; he again offered to serve the King with Monsieur 
by giving that Prince good advice and playing him false. 
"I dare swear," he said to Richelieu, "that you will find 
yourself in great need of a very zealous, affectionate, and 
tolerably watchful man, such as your Lordship's humble 
servant." " I will bring everything into order," he wrote. 
But his letters lay unanswered. 

As to Mme. de Chevreuse, Chalais' first act, after his 
arrest, had been to write to her, repeating the asseveration 
of his passion, and beseeching her to help him. "It is not 
at this hour," he wrote, "that I first recognized the divinity 
of your beauty, but I have now begun to learn that you 
must be served like a goddess, since I am not permitted 
to prove my love to you without running the risk of 
losing my life. Take care of it, then, since it is utterly 
dedicated to you, and if you judge it worthy to be pre- 
served, tell this companion of my misfortune that you will 
sometimes remember that no man ever loved as I do." 
Mme. de Chevreuse, herself suspected, and sorely alarmed 
as to her own fate, could do nothing for him : she did not 
even answer his letter. Her silence stung Chalais : so the 
Duchess, having compromised him, was now going to 
leave him to his fate ! During his next cross-examina- 
tion he mentioned the part Mme. de Chevreuse had 
played in connection with himself, and then, growing 
angry, he made known her sentiments, her plans and her 
intrigues. Mme. de Chevreuse, counselled by Bautru, had 
just made up her mind to wait on Richelieu at Beauregard, 
and intercede with him in the prisoner's favour. Scoffingly, 
the Cardinal told her what her protege ws saying about 
her. The Duchess, furious, lost her self-control. Her 
rage broke forth, and she brought counter-charges against 
her accomplice. Richelieu, of course, reported these asser- 
tions to the prisoner, who made still further revelations. 
He even wrote her vehement letters, which the Cardinal 
intercepted. Later he was to regret the intemperance of 

no 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

his language: he was to protest that "he had never said 
anything untrue in any of his answers except in those 
concerning Mme. de Chevreuse," but it was too late. 

Then Chalais gave himself up to the darkest despair. 
He let his beard grow, "a wild beard"; the guards who 
watched over him related that he would rage up and down 
his cell foaming at the mouth, and crying out that he would 
rather be in hell, that he was "worse than damned," and 
when his keepers reminded him, "in God's name, that he 
belonged to a Christian communion," he exclaimed, "A 
fig for Christianity ! " (the expression was far stronger,) 
" I am not in a state to have my duty shown me ! " They 
strove to quiet him, he grew more and more excited. " He 
felt ready to do like the ancient Romans," he declared, 
"and was inclined to poison himself; he would crack his 
skull against the wall." Thoroughly scandalized, his 
guards remarked that "there was no paradise for those 
who destroyed themselves ! " His answer was to the effect 
that "his misery was too great," and he swore he would 
"crack his head into four separate pieces." All these say- 
ings were reported to his judges : the culprit, they were 
told, did nothing but utter impieties, would not say his 
prayers, blasphemed all the day long. The King's opinion 
of him was completely formed. 

On August 5 Louis XHI signed letters-patent to insti- 
tute a Court of Criminal Justice, charged with the duty 
of finally deciding the prisoner's fate. The court held its 
first sitting on the i ith, in one of the halls of the Franciscan 
Monastery at Nantes. After the usual formalities, the 
documents connected with the trial were read aloud. On 
the following day, the 12th, the Attorney-General asked for 
an adjournment, to summon several persons for the purpose 
of including them in the prosecution — among them Mme. 
de Chevreuse, M. de la Louviere, Bois d'Annemets, Puy- 
laurens, and four other gentlemen. The court, in con- 
formity with these conclusions, issued a warrant for the 

III 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

arrest of the inculpated persons, with the proviso that the 
decree was not to be executed until the King had signed 
it. The King did not sign. Mme. de Chevreuse was inter- 
rogated, but privately, and she remained at liberty. On 
the 1 8th, the examination of the accused and the deposi- 
tions of the witnesses were concluded and the court 
delivered sentence : Chalais was condemned to death ! 

When the condemned man learned his fate he was filled 
with bitter sorrow at the thought that he had denounced 
and compromised Mme. de Chevreuse. He declared to 
his keepers that his deposition concerning "that lady " had 
been false, and when one of his guards, Lament, pointed 
out that it agreed with what he himself had told them in 
the course of conversation, and that it was confirmed by 
letters he had written and which had been intercepted, 
Chalais protested that "what he had written had been 
written out of the extreme fury into which he had been 
thrown by a false idea he had had, that she had deceived 
him." He was once more brought before his judges, and 
renewed his retractation. 

The sentence, which dealt with the crime of high treason 
only, condemned Chalais to be beheaded in one of the 
public squares of Nantes ; his head to be set up on a pike 
over one of the rampart gates, and his body quartered and 
hung on four gibbets erected in the four chief streets of 
the town. His mother wrote an imploring letter to the 
King : "Sire, I beseech you on my knees to grant me my 
son's life ! Do not let the child whom I have bred up with 
so much tenderness cause the few years left to me to be 
desolate ! I gave him to you when he was eight years old : " 
he is the grandson of the INIarshal de Monluc and of 
President Jeannin. . . ." The King consented to suppress 
the ignominious additions that aggravated the death 
sentence. The execution was carried out on Wednesday, 
x\ugust 19. Its details were of a horrible nature. The 
regular executioner was away, and the authorities had 

112 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

recourse to the assistance of a poor wretch who had been 
condemned to be hung, and who knew nothing of the 
grisly trade. Thirty-six blows were delivered with a 
"cooper's broad-axe" before the head was parted from 
the trunk, and the headsman had to "turn the head round 
the other way before he could cut it quite off." The victim 
groaned till the twentieth blow had been delivered, crying 
out ''Jesus, Maria!'' 

On August 2, Chalais had written to the King, "May 
it please you to remember that I only belonged to the 
faction for thirteen days. Permit me, Sire, to appeal to 
your Majesty, with tears in my eyes, and as the most 
repentant of men, to grant me pardon, out of your extreme 
goodness." If Louis XIII showed him no mercy it was 
because, humiliated as he felt himself to be by this attempt 
to sow disturbance in his family and in the State, by this 
reckoning on his own death or deposition, and by the fact 
that one of the gentlemen of his own Household had dared 
to dip his hands into so vile a conspiracy, he allowed him- 
self to be swayed by that instinctive and inflexible spirit 
of severity which was peculiar to him all his life. 

But what fate had he reserved for the original authors 
of the plot, and more especially for Marshal d'Ornano 
and for Mme. de Chevreuse? 

Ornano was still at Vincennes, awaiting the King's 
pleasure. There were great difficulties about his prosecu- 
tion. Monsieur would have to be brought into it, cross- 
questioned, confronted with the prisoner. The judges 
would have to deal with the Queen, with the greatest nobles 
in the kingdom, with foreign States. And further, Gaston 
had declared that if his Governor was tried he himself 
would leave the Court. The Ministers, thoroughly puzzled, 
sought to gain time. Circumstances were to settle their 
difificulties for them. 

For on September 2, after only a few days' illness, 
Ornano breathed his last. His death occurred too 
I 113 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

conveniently for it to escape suspicious comment. The 
public vowed the Marshal had been poisoned. In vain did 
Ministers deny the report : the greatest publicity was given 
to the details of Ornano's illness : physicians made a post- 
mortem examination, and found no trace of poison ; their 
report was printed; Louis XIII took the trouble of sending 
a letter to all the officials in the kingdom, which set forth 
that the prisoner had "been attacked by a sickness of 
dysentery and a retention of the urine, with constant fever, 
which had carried him out of the world after two or three 
weeks ; that the person in charge of him had called in everyv 
assistance that could be desired, both as to remedies and 
advice, from the best and most experienced physicians in 
Paris." Still the world doubted. But these doubts were 
really unfounded. An examination of all the documents 
proves that the Marshal died a natural death. In any case, 
his departure simplified the King's business. 

The King had settled it, to begin with, by insisting that 
Gaston should marry Mile, de Montpensier at once. The 
young lady arrived on August 2 : the King sent for his 
brother to the Council Chamber, and there, before the 
assembled Councillors, informed him of his "decision to 
give him a fine apanage and approve his marriage." It 
was a veiled order. In a fright, Gaston acquiesced. "Are 
you now speaking without the equivocations you have 
several times employed ? " inquired the King. Monsieur 
vowed he was giving his honest word. That very evening 
there had been a scene in Anne of Austria's apartment. 
Mme. de Chevreuse had made it a case of conscience on 
Gaston's part not to give in and agree to the marriage. 
The Queen had added her own entreaties to her friend's. 
The tW'O ladies had begged and prayed the Prince to such 
a degree, so Gaston afterwards acknowledged, "that they 
had both gone on their knees to me, to beseech me not to 
marry Mile, de Montpensier." And he added that "the 
Queen Regnant had entreated him several times over, in 

114 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

the course of three days, not to carry out the marriage." 
But there was no possibihty of retreat now. 

On August 5, in the King's Cabinet at the Castle of 
Nantes, and in the presence of the parish priest, Cardinal 
de Richelieu himself performed the betrothal ceremony, 
and the marriage itself was celebrated, very quietly and in 
the most simple fashion, on the following day. Bois 
d'Annemets wrote that the business was a dull one, no 
music, no show, and the bride and bridegroom dressed in 
their ordinary clothes. "By the God who made me ! " cried 
Chalais, when he heard the news in his prison. "Here's 
a high-handed stroke ! They have caught Monseigneur 
on the hop ! May the devil take me if ever there was a 
man as bold in his management of State affairs as the Lord 
Cardinal ! " 

And now, what was to be done with Mme. de Chev- 
reuse ? A council was held. Richelieu, with his usual 
precision and lucidity, summed up all the griefs against 
her. "She had done more harm," he asserted, "than any 
other person." She had personally acknowledged to him, 
on the occasion of her interview with him at Beauregard, 
the existence of the agreement between the great nobles 
to prevent Monsieur's marriage : Chalais had denounced 
her as the author of the whole cabal ; through Mme. de 
Rohan, she had put the nobles into communication with 
the Huguenot rebels; she it was who had suggested the 
criminal plot against himself at Fleury ; she it was who had 
constantly instigated Gaston to leave the Court, she, who 
had led Chalais astray, even as she had led the Vendome 
brothers ; and the Cardinal, piling proof on proof, recalled 
the prayer Mme. de Chevreuse had addressed to Gaston, 
on her knees, to refuse to make the marriage, "whatever 
it might cost him." She was the most guilty of all. But 
what was to be done ? There was no possibility of arrest- 
ing her and making her stand her trial : the difficulties in 
the Marshal's case would be repeated in hers, and in a 

115 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

particularly aggravated form. Besides, it was against all 
custom to imprison a lady belonging to a great family, and 
hale her before Parliament or any Court of Justice, for 
criminal proceedings : such a measure would rouse several 
powerful houses to fury. The Ministers discussed the 
matter. The King broke in upon their debate by declaring 
that, to begin with, Mme. de Chevreuse should be sent 
into exile. 

It was Bautru who brought the Duchess the news of 
the measure to be taken against her. Her blood 
boiled, her rage was ungovernable. "They little knew > 
her! " she broke out; "they thought her mind was only 
equal to flirtations ! She would show them, when the time 
came, that she was good for other work." She vented a 
string of imprecations. She poured forth a stream of 
threats : she swore she would have every Frenchman in 
England treated just as she was being treated in France ; 
she fell on the King and the Cardinal and heaped abuse 
upon them. "The King was an incapable idiot!" she 
cried. " It was a disgrace that such a rogue as the Cardinal 
should hold the reins of Government ! " 

Anne of Austria, who had been informed of the King's 
decision by M. de Nogent, was in much the same con- 
dition of mind: she, too, flew into a fury. "Her anger 
burst forth. She said a great many spiteful things, to the 
effect that she would rather never bear a child than be 
parted from that creature (Mme. de Chevreuse), and she 
threatened that she would have her vengeance on the 
Cardinal, whatever it might cost her." 

The Due de Chevreuse was most painfully affected, he 
said some hard words of the Cardinal, declared he "had 
a deadly hatred of him." But just then the King wrote 
him a letter commanding him to hurry his wife's departure, 
and Chevreuse forthwith replied : "Sire, the bearer of this 
letter having joined me some four leagues from Dampierre, 
I have not been able sooner to satisfy your Majesty's will. 

ii6 



THE CHALAIS AFFAIR 

I shall be at Dampierre to-morrow morning, to give orders, 
at the same time, for the departure of my wife, with all the 
obedience I owe your Majesty's commands." 

There was nothing for it but to submit. Louis XIII 
had decided, so the Due de Rohan writes, that Mme. de 
Chevreuse was to go to the Chateau du Verger, in Poitou, 
which belonged to her brother, the Prince de Gu6m6n6, 
and there remain, without leaving its precincts, until 
further orders. IVIme. de Chevreuse resolved to escape 
the performance of the King's behest by taking to flight. 
Secretly she took her way to Paris, and thence to the 
east of France, crossed the frontier, and took refuge in 
the Duchy of Lorraine. Thus, of her own free will, she 
began her first exile in a foreign country. 



117 



CHAPTER V 

THE EXILE IN LORRAINE : THE PASSION OF CHATEAUNEUF 

Montague's love for Mme. de Chevreuse — Their intrigues — Arrest of 
Montague — The Death of Buckingham — Mme. de Chevreuse returns 
to Paris — Chiteauneufs love for her — His disgrace — Mme. de 
Chevreuse is exiled to Touraine — 1627-33. 

"Let my reader imagine great villages full of inhabitants, 
set beside fine rivers, the banks of which are dotted with 
cattle of all kinds, hills covered with trees and vineyards, 
plains so rich that there is hardly any need to sow the wheat 
and other grain they bear : peasants who live in glass- 
windowed houses, and every one of whom has a great 
silver goblet in his oaken chest : — thus will he attain some 
faint idea of what this happy province is. Never did I 
behold so brilliant a picture of abundance, nor of labours 
that provide a better image of the felicity of human 
existence." Such is the description of Lorraine given by 
Nicolas Goulas in his Memoirs, just about the time when 
Mme. de Chevreuse sought a refuge in that Duchy. But it 
was not the charm of the country that had attracted her. 
Through her husband, the Due de Chevreuse, she was the 
kinswoman of Charles IV, reigning Duke of Lorraine, 
and to him she had appealed for refuge, protection, and 
support. 

The Duke was just one-and-twenty, five years younger 
than his visitor. Tall, thin, fair, with a bony face and 
highly arched eyebrows that gave him an astonished air, 
and an active body well-fitted for athletic exercises, and 
more especially for horsemanship, in which he excelled, 
Charles IV had an open and smiling countenance. He 

118 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

was brilliant and amusing. A contemporary biographer 
declared he had "a nose that smelt things a long way 
off." Though his studies had not been profound, he was 
no fool ; he had a great power of assimilation, he was a 
good listener, a still better talker; but he was considered 
proud, heedless, and restless. Brought up in France, he 
had spent a great deal of time with the Guises, his own 
cousins, and had often been at Dampierre ; he loved sport 
and pleasure; he was a frivolous prince. He had suc- 
ceeded his uncle, Henri H, whose only daughter, Nicole, he 
had married. It was not a happy marriage. Henri H 
had not entertained any very high opinion of his son-in- 
law. "You will see that blundering fellow will ruin 
everything !" he had declared. The young Duke was 
certainly destined to bring his State into a very dangerous 
position. 

Charles IV was overjoyed by the arrival of Mme. de 
Chevreuse. In her company he would have a whiff of the 
air of the French Court, of which he had so agreeable a 
recollection. "Not being able to forget the memories he 
had brought with him from France, he was to find great 
delight in the company of a person who would bring all 
the breeding of that country into his palace." Mme. de 
Chevreuse came to Lorraine heralded by her reputation 
as a fascinating woman, "beautiful and witty, very well 
informed as to Court intrigues, with a gallantry of appear- 
ance and a style of conversation quite different from 
those of this country, the proximity of which to Germany 
renders the methods of its people heavy and coarse." 
The Prince, who sighed for the "pleasantness of life in 
Paris," and had little taste for "German pride," would call 
on all the resources of his modest court to receive his 
cousin, the young and beauteous Duchess, in worthy 
fashion. The result was to exceed his wildest hopes. 

What, indeed, was the most likely consequence of a 
meeting between a prince of one-and-twenty and a lady 

119 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

live years his senior, a finished coquette, bent on using 
every fascination she possessed to charm the Duke whose 
protection she had come to claim ? Charles IV fell in love 
with Mme. de Chevreuse. "Everything," says Richelieu, 
"began with love." "Though the relationship served as 
a pretext," writes Brienne, "it was her beauty which won 
Mme. de Chevreuse the power she obtained." Charles IV 
qute forgot Nicole ! 

There were entertainments of all sorts, hunts and 
joustings and horse-races, that delighted the Court of 
Lorraine, and of all these Mme. de Chevreuse was the* 
queen. One of the most brilliant of these gatherings took 
place during Lent, at Shrovetide (February 14, 1627), in 
the great hall of the ducal castle at Nancy, at nine o'clock 
at night. The story of it is told us by Henri Humbert, 
and it was illustrated by Jacques Callot : " It is you, 
Madame," said Callot, in a dedicatory epistle to Mme. de 
Chevreuse, which reveals the depth of the impression 
produced at Nancy by the beauty of the Duchess and the 
passionate admiration with which it had inspired the Duke, 
"it is you who, France having recognized in you the 
light of all perfection, have come hither to receive the same 
approbation from our eyes, our voices, and our hearts. 
We confess, O fair Princess ! that never before did 
Lorraine behold so many beauties, and all the more 
glorious because they are not of foreign growth. Madame, 
this is the sky wherein your sun must most naturally shine, 
there to be joined to that great Mars who draws from it 
his origin ! " On a great platform, all the Duchesses, 
Princesses, and ladies of the Court had taken their places. 
Charles IV made his entry, sumptuously dressed. He was 
followed by a series of cars, magnificently adorned, 
surrounded by trumpeters, buglers, and torchbearers, and 
bearing the Princes of the House of Lorraine, garbed as 
classic gods, and ladies robed in carnation-coloured satin, 
who played on lutes. Then, the Duke of Lorraine having 

120 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

put on his armour, a barrier was set up across the arena, and 
the champions dashed upon each other, lance in hand. The 
victor of them all was to win the prize — a sword. It fell to 
the Duke, who instantly presented it to Mme. de Chevreuse. 

But while the Duchess was thus apparently forgetting 
her distresses amidst the delights of this adoring little 
court, the Government of Louis XIII was preparing to act. 

The King had not seen the Duchess pass over the 
frontier and into Lorraine without a feeling of extreme 
vexation. Once at Nancy, she was sure to cabal against 
France, and incite the Duke to raise all kinds of difficulties. 
Richelieu desired the King's Lieutenant at Metz, M. de 
Flavigny, to collect information for him. Precautions 
were taken. The garrisons of the three bishoprics of Metz, 
Toul, Verdun, were strengthened, and orders were given to 
rebuild the citadel of Verdun, all this to intimidate the 
Duke of Lorraine. When Charles IV begged the 
Bishop of Verdun to stop the building and excommunicate 
the workmen labouring on it, and the Bishop complied with 
his request, the French Government sent a judge, M. 
Charpentier, to Verdun, who declared the excommunica- 
tion null and void, sentenced the Bishop to pay a fine of 
10,000 livres, and had the works begun again. 

Mme. de Chevreuse was not easy in her mind. Remorse 
was beginning to assail her. She had kept up her 
correspondence with Anne of Austria, and made an 
attempt, through her, to repair the mischief she had done, 
and get leave to return to France; if the King, she wrote, 
would only withdraw the order of banishment he had 
intended to send her, she would come back. Anne of 
Austria put forward this request as if it had been pre- 
sented to her by some third person. 

"I think," replied Richelieu to Bouthillier, on October i, 
1626, "that the Queen should content herself with telling 
the persons who speak for Mme. de Chevreuse that all she 
can do is to induce the King not to press for her return. 

121 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

As for withdrawing the order he has given, that is quite 
impossible." Mme. de Ghevreuse then applied to her own 
husband. M. de Chevreuse suggested that his wife should 
retire into the Bourbonnais or into Auvergne. He would 
conduct her there himself. Louis XIII expressed no 
objection. The Duchess made as though she would go a 
little way into France ; then she changed her mind and 
went back over the frontier. A little later she made another 
appeal, this time through the Duke of Lorraine: "His 
Majesty has done me the honour of telling me," wrote 
Richelieu, "that I was to answer in his name that he cannof 
believe that this Princess, who finds so great a pleasure in 
living amongst foreigners that she has left his kingdom 
twice over, not only without his leave, but against his will, 
can really desire to return to his Court; that M. de Chev- 
reuse, having asked as an act of grace that she might come 
back into the Bourbonnais, had set her on the road she 
should have taken to get back altogether, but that since 
that time, she had testified, by leaving it, that she had 
no desire for that which others were asking for her ; and 
further, that the present time does not permit of His 
Majesty's doing what M. de Lorraine requests in this 
particular : in a word, her return is impossible, for the 
moment ! " 

Mme. de Chevreuse was exceedingly annoyed. It was 
clear, then, that she was despised; she was to be treated 
with severity. All that remained to her was to avenge 
herself. She would make use of the influence she had 
acquired over the Duke of Lorraine to stir him up against 
France. At that period, the King's Government, which 
found the Huguenot business very troublesome and 
difficult, was about to begin that siege of La Rochelle, 
which was to absorb all its energies for so long a time. 
Before long the effects of the Duchess's animosity began 
to make themselves felt. The Duke of Lorraine put 
forward unjustifiable pretensions, and made claims that 

122 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

were really nothing but spiteful attempts to stir up a 
quarrel. "In Paris," says Brienne, "everybody was 
persuaded the Duke was acting on the instigation of Mme. 
de Chevreuse." Just at this juncture there appeared at 
Nancy an Englishman, Lord Montague, who was to be 
singularly useful to the Duchess for the development of her 
gift of intrigue, and was to help her to spin one of those 
huge plots destined to prove the source of so much anxiety 
to the Cardinal. 

Displeased by the King's periodical refusals to allow 
him to return to Paris, Buckingham was growing more 
and more bitter aga'ust Louis XI I L The perpetual 
violations of the treaty of marriage between Charles I and 
Henrietta-Maria gave rise to constant complaints on the 
part of the King of France, which were rudely received, 
and left without any answer. The relations between the 
two Courts were of the most precarious kind. Buckingham, 
resolved to do France a mischief if he could, was always 
on the look-out for favourable opportunities. The 
Huguenots were active, and he decided to support the 
rebels. As the plan worked itself out, the Duke began 
to dream of a grand coalition against Louis, in which 
Savoy, Piedmont, and Spain were all to be included; 
communications would be kept up with the interior of 
France, the King would find himself in a cleft stick, 
between the Huguenots and the great nobles, on one side, 
and the foreigners, on the other. It was in connection 
with the preparations for this understanding that Montague, 
Lord of King Charles's Bedchamber, arrived in Lorraine, 
to open negotiations with the Duke. 

Montague was a young Englishman, reserved in manner, 
distinguished in appearance, elegant, very good-looking, 
who wrote and spoke French well ; in later years he became 
a Catholic, took priest's orders, "an abbe, and a devout 
one," says La Porte, and he assisted Anne of Austria in her 
last moments. At the time of which we now speak, he was 

123 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

a merry boon companion, not overburdened with prejudices. 
Having been mixed up in all the Duchess's affairs in 
London, he knew her well ; he knew Anne of Austria also, 
and he was Buckingham's friend. Informed, too, of the 
conditions under which his mission must be performed, it 
was his intention, when he reached Lorraine, to enter into 
communications with Mme. de Chevreuse : the influence 
wielded by the Duchess over Charles IV was well-known 
in London : her continued correspondence with Anne of 
Austria was suspected there ; thanks to her help, Montague 
would be able to treat both with the Duke of Lorraine and 
with the great families in France. 

Mme. de Chevreuse was not at Nancy; she had settled 
at Bar-le-Duc, which at that time belonged to Lorraine, 
and was even the subject of a dispute with the French 
King, with regard to the investiture necessary if the Duke 
was to hold the place. "Mme. de Chevreuse," says 
Hugo in his Vie de Charles IV, "made this her usual 
place of residence, less for the sake of propriety than to 
avoid the offence her continued presence at Nancy would 
have given in France." The scruple was a very tardy one ! 
Montague saw the Duchess, and unfolded Buckingham's 
plan to her. Buckingham, he said, proposed to equip 
three fleets, each to carry 10,000 men. One was to go to 
La Rochelle, one to the coasts of Guyenne, and one to 
Normandy. Each was to disembark the troops it carried, 
and then to blockade the mouths of the Seine, the Loire, 
and the Garonne. In return for this, England wanted the 
Duke of Lorraine and the Emperor to invade France, the 
Duke of Savoy to march on Dauphine and Provence, and 
the Due de Rohan to raise the Huguenots in the South. 
To attain all this, Montague begged Mme. de Chevreuse 
to help him. 

Joyfully, Mme. de Chevreuse fell in with the plan. She 
received Montague in the most friendly fashion ; and made 
herself so agreeable to him that the young man, fascinated 

124 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

by her beauty, was quite unable to resist the strength of 
the passion that soon fired him, and Hugo asserts that 
Mme. de Chevreuse offered no resistance. Thanks to her 
intervention, Montague was placed in communication with 
the Duke of Lorraine : thanks to her, once more, the Duke 
followed Montague's lead: "She pushed him over the 
precipice," says Richelieu. The F'rench Government was 
kept informed, and Mme. de Chevreuse, on her side, was in 
correspondence with Anne of Austria, who was watching 
the progress of the business. The Duke of Lorraine sent 
word that he would declare himself as soon as the English 
had disembarked their troops. 

Mme. de Chevreuse sent letters in all directions. By 
arrangement with Anne of Austria — so, at least, Richelieu 
clearly insinuates in his Memoirs — she entered into commu- 
nication with the Comte de Soissons and the Rohan family. 
Women, adds the Cardinal, were intriguing for her, 
"feeding the Queen with perpetual discontents," stirring 
up the Comtesse de Soissons, urging Monsieur to take 
to flight. A message was sent to the Comte de Soissons 
that if the King died, he would be placed upon the throne. 
Wider and wider the net was being spread. 

Meanwhile, Montague travelled to Savoy, and thence 
into Switzerland, to Holland, and to Venice, and entered 
into negotiations with the Due de Rohan, on whom he 
waited. Buckingham, Rohan tells us in his Memoirs, was, 
so Montagu affirmed, to send over 500 horsemen ; the 
Huguenot leader was to take up arms in Languedoc, to 
march to Montauban, to endeavour to make a junction 
with the English troops that were to land at Bordeaux. 
Rohan contented himself with sending a reply to the effect 
that he too would make up his mind once the English 
troops had succeeded in effecting their landing. 

It became known at Court that the plot was to be put 
into execution forthwith. Mme. de Chevreuse had per- 
suaded the Duke of Lorraine to give the signal to the 

125 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

rebels by taking the field himself. Flavigny wrote from 
Metz that 10,000 men were being raised. Charles IV had 
asked his Germanic Majesty to send him a corps d'armee, 
and was only awaiting the arrival of these troops to 
cast off the mask. The English fleet, on its side, was 
preparing to disembark troops on the Isle of R6. 

The French Government took rapid measures. The 
Army of Champagne, under the command of Louis de 
Marillac, was reinforced, so as to be able to hold any 
invasion from the Lorraine side in check. Louis XIII 
himself started for the Isle of Re, to meet the English in 
person. A captain of Chevau-legers, Blagny by name, 
volunteered to abduct Charles IV "close to a house 
whither he frequently went alone, to see the Duchesse de 
Chevreuse," but Richelieu advised against this step, 
because of the too great scandal such an attempt was likely 
to cause. Still, if the Duke's person was not to be touched, 
why not try to carry off Montague ? The documents thus 
seized would provide useful information for the King's 
Government. 

Montague, after his visits to Savoy and Lorraine, had 
gone back to London, to give an account of his mission 
to Buckingham, and had failed to find him, the Duke 
having departed with the English fleet to the Isle of Re. 
Charles I gave him orders to return to the Continent. 
Richelieu had him watched, and two Basques, in conve- 
nient disguises, followed the English nobleman. 

Having crossed the Channel, he travelled along the 
frontier, so as to keep out of France, and pushed towards 
Lorraine. French posts had been established all along 
that frontier. One evening, while the traveller was 
riding a stage in the Barrois, one of the Basque spies 
slipped away and warned the officer in command of the 
nearest post, M. de Bourbonne, that Montague was in his 
power, and quite close by. Bourbonne put a bold face on 
it, collected some half-score of his own friends, made a dash 

126 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

across the frontier, laid sudden hands on Montague and his 
serving-man (who carried a cloal^;-bag crammed with 
papers), conducted his prisoner to Bourbonne, in the first 
place, thence to Coiffy, a great fortress with mighty walls, 
and finally, to the Bastille. 

This arrest, as might have been expected, made a great 
stir. The Duke of Lorraine vehemently protested against 
such a violation of his territory : he demanded the imme- 
diate release of Lord Montague, and the punishment of 
M. de Bourbonne. Louis XIII refused satisfaction. And 
meanwhile, Bullion and Fouquet proceeded to examine the 
English nobleman's papers. 

They were exceedingly instructive : they revealed, as 
Richelieu put it, "that England, Savoy, Lorraine, the 
Emperor, and the Heretics in France, were all bound 
together in a pernicious design against the State : that they 
meant to make war both by sea and by land — by sea in 
Poitou and Normandy, by land in Champagne — attacking 
Verdun with the forces of the Duke of Lorraine and the 
Emperor, and Burgundy with those of the Duke of Savoy ; 
that it seemed more than likely that Venice was mixed up in 
the business to some extent; that the Dutch had likewise 
proved by their actions, not only their connivance but 
their strong support : that the whole business had been 
set a-going by the Chevreuse, who had acted in the matter 
with the consent of the Queen Regnant." 

The cloak-bag contained instructions from the King of 
England, memoranda in Montague's own hand, a quantity 
of correspondence, and a number of letters from Mme. de 
Chevreuse. 

Everyone was very much alarmed. The Duke of 
Lorraine sent once more, this time by the Marquis of 
Lenoncourt, to demand Montague's release within the 
space of twenty-four hours, and added a threat that if he 
was not given satisfaction, he would not "fail to use any 
of the legitimate methods that justice permitted of his 

127 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

employing, to obtain reparation for the insult offered to 
his person." No answer was vouchsafed him. The Duke 
of Savoy commissioned his confidential representative in 
Paris to "reply, if necessary, to anything found in Mon- 
tague's papers which might be displeasing to his Majesty." 

The most alarmed of all was Anne of Austria. La 
Porte has left us the story of her terrors. She fully 
expected her name would be found in Montague's corre- 
spondence. What would the King do? He would drive 
her out, no doubt — send her back to Spain ! She "could 
neither eat nor sleep " for thinking of it. She sent for La 
Porte, bade him go to Coiffy, mingle with the armed men 
of the escort that was bringing Montague to Paris; get at 
the Englishman, and find out from him exactly what the 
perusal of the documents seized was likely to entail on her. 
La Porte departed, reached Coiffy just as the seven or 
eight hundred horsemen commanded by MM. de Bour- 
bonne and de Boulogne were starting on their ride to Paris, 
with Montague in their midst, contrived to get near the 
prisoner, and was happy enough to learn from him that the 
Queen's name did not appear : if he was questioned, he 
would not say one word. When La Porte repeated his 
words to Anne of Austria, she "shook with joy." 

Montague, in his prison in the Bastille, pleaded extenu- 
ating circumstances. In a letter to Louis XIII, he 
explained that "the King of England had only taken up 
arms against the King because he had thought His 
Majesty did not respond to the esteem and affection he felt 
for him; and that Savoy, Lorraine, and Soissons had 
joined him because they were hurt at the small regard the 
King bestowed upon them, and that if they could all be 
persuaded of the contrary, they might be led to make 
the hearty peace so needful in the interests of both 
kingdoms." Whether genuine or not, reasons put for- 
ward at so critical a moment were necessarily accepted. 
Louis XIII, whose hands were over-full with the business 

128 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

of the Isle of Re, preferred an attempt to break up 
the confederation gently to an endeavour to reduce it by- 
main force. He was willing, consequently, to negotiate. 
There was, indeed, the matter of the Duchesse de Chev- 
reuse. Present events, as Goulas said, were "due to her 
instigation " : Montague himself had insinuated that she 
had "induced Buckingham to do what he had done." 
Richelieu confirmed these assertions, and related that after 
the defeat of the English in the Isle of Re, various 
papers had been discovered in Buckingham's lodging, and 
amongst them, a memorandum the Duke had drawn 
up to send to England, and which set forth that he 
had undertaken his enterprise "because Gerbier " (the 
English Resident in Flanders) "had reported to him from 
a person in whom he was bound to have confidence " (he 
meant Mme. de Chevreuse), "that this was what he must 
do." The Duchess was guilty indeed ! But even with her, 
it would be wiser to use gentle means and recall her to her 
duty, than to put forward demands that would not prove 
obtainable. 

Advised by the Ministers, Marie de Medicis, who was 
acting as Regent during the King's absence in Saintonge, 
explained to the Duke of Lorraine's Envoy, M. de Breval, 
that His Majesty, who had been informed of his master's 
plans by the perusal of Lord Montague's correspondence, 
could hardly believe in their truth, and desiring to clear 
the matter up, requested the Duke would come to Paris; 
once there, he could "say his say." What was the matter 
with him ? What was the cause of the attitude he had 
been assuming for the past six months ? Bouthillier, the 
Secretary of State, undertook to speak to Breval about 
Mme. de Chevreuse. To do this, he resorted to a subter- 
fuge. He enlarged on the satisfaction the conduct of 
M. de Chevreuse had given the King, and declared His 
Majesty desired to show his appreciation of it by 
treating his wife with benevolence : that this lady need 
K 129 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

only alter her line of conduct, and use her influence, in 
future, to settle the trouble, after having made it, and she 
would be allowed to return to France. Bouthillier even 
went so far as to hint at the possibility of Buckingham's 
travelling to Paris. The Due de Chevreuse, duly warned, 
communicated with his wife : he was urgent with her : "I 
rejoice," replied Richelieu, when Breval notified this fact 
to him, "that M. de Chevreuse should be undoing what 
others are said to have done," and he added, to save the 
King's dignity : "If M. de Lorraine does not lay down his 
arms, the King will take up his, and that as powerfully as 
he ought." 

Meanwhile, and as a proof of his desire to conciliate, 
Louis XIII set Montague at liberty. Montague waited 
on the sovereign to express his thanks : he explained that 
the whole misunderstanding had arisen out of the refusal to 
receive Buckingham in Paris, and "the ill-treatment meted 
out to Mme. de Chevreuse," and added that when the 
agreement between the two crowns came under discus- 
sion, England would demand that the Duchess should be 
included in it. Louis XIII returned an evasive answer. 

The Duke of Lorraine had agreed lo come to Paris and 
discuss the situation with the French Government. He 
set forth his claims ; they included one concerning Mme. 
de Chevreuse : he asked that the Duchess might, at all 
events, be allowed to go to Dampierre, or to settle at 
Jouarre; Mme. des Essarts — Charlotte des Essarts, Com- 
tesse de Romorantin, a former mistress of Henri IV, who 
had become the wife of M. du Hallier— intervened, and 
assured the Ministers, in the name of Charles IV, that "in 
consideration of this change, the Duke of Lorraine would 
do anything he was asked to do " : this proves the import- 
ance attached to the Duchess's pardon. "I think," wrote 
Richelieu to Marie de Medicis, on April 30, 1628, "that it is 
of no consequence whether Mme. de Chevreuse lives at 
Dampierre or at Jouarre, and that although the des Essarts 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

is a bad woman, it will not be well to refuse her intervention 
to begin with, seeing that even as one thief can manage 
another of his own kidney better than any Capuchin, so the 
des Essarts is fitter to treat with Mme. de Chevreuse than 
the Marquise de Maignelay ! " Thus his opinion, too, 
was that the King had better give in. So that the royal 
dignity might be safeguarded in the process, M. de 
Chevreuse was to be put forward. He had rendered many 
services, the authorities would give out that as a reward for 
these, his wife's situation was to be made less unpleasant, 
and Richelieu would write him gracious letters, preparing 
the way for the pardon, to the idea of which the public mind 
was to be accustomed. After all, so the Cardinal pointed 
out to his master, Mme. de Chevreuse was too dangerous in 
Lorraine; she spent her whole time hatching plots; it 
would be far better to have her in France, where they could 
keep an eye upon her. They would impose certain 
conditions for her return : she was not to come to Paris ; 
she was to avoid any place where the King or Queen 
might be; if she desired it, she might live in the Abbey 
of Jouarre, of which one of her kinswomen was Prioress ; 
she might even go and pay her respects to Marie de 
Medicis, whenever the Queen-Mother went to Monceaux ; 
she might reside at Dampierre whenever the French 
Court was not in Paris. M. de Chevreuse agreed to all 
these conditions, offered to append his own signature to 
them, and undertook to make his wife accept them too. 
The King gave his consent. 

Mme. de Chevreuse, duly informed of her husband's 
undertaking on her behalf, made no sign. A person who 
had been in her service, and whom she had turned away, 
came and reported that she was talking more scornfully 
than ever about both the King and Richelieu. The same 
informant added that the intercourse between the Duchess 
and Anne of Austria had never been so close ; that Mme. de 
Chevreuse kept on telling the Queen she had nothing to 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

fear, because Buckingham, England, the Emperor, 
Spain, Lorraine, and otlier forces were all on her side. 
A tragic event was to shatter all this splendid con- 
fidence. 

On August 23, 1628, Buckingham was at Portsmouth, 
whither he had gone to hurry on the preparations for 
sending important reinforcements to La Rochelle. He had 
just accompanied a visitor to the door of his cabinet, when 
a man of the name of Fulton, a Puritan, and the son of a 
sergeant, came close up to him, and suddenly plunged a 
knife into his heart ! Death was instantaneous. This 
sudden departure was singularly favourable to the arrange- 
ment of French affairs. 

Mme. de Chevreuse was unspeakably affected. She 
fainted away, and had to be bled several times over before 
her consciousness returned ; she was distracted with despair. 
Her love for Buckingham, who was her strongest sup- 
porter, still endured. His death broke up all her dreams, 
and destroyed all her plans. She was thoroughly over- 
whelmed. 

All this time, Louis XHI and Richelieu were actively 
prosecuting the siege of La Rochelle. Now that Bucking- 
ham was no more, and that all hope of help from England 
had failed them, the besieged rebels, already exhausted by 
a struggle that had lasted over a year, felt the end of their 
resistance was at hand. Two months later, the capitula- 
tion was signed, and on November i, 1628, Louis rode 
into the vanquished town at the head of his victorious 
troops. 

His triumph was a brilliant one, and produced a deep 
effect on the mind of his conterhporaries. The Huguenots 
were believed to be finally undone, and the King's 
Government free, consejqiiently, to turn all its forces against 
the foreigner. The King's prestige was strengthened, and 
his adversaries were proportionately weakened. 

By degrees they gave in. England sued for peace, and 

132 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

discussion ensued. Mme. de Chevreuse, who clearly 
perceived that, as far as she was concerned, the game was 
up, did not propose to be left out of all the arrange- 
ments. She appealed to Charles I to secure her interests in 
the course of the negotiations. The English King con- 
sented to tell Louis XIII "that he felt a particular affection 
for Mme. de Chevreuse, and would certainly demand that 
she should be included in the Peace, if he were not ashamed 
to mention any woman in connection with it." Louis XIII 
and his advisors feigned to attach no importance to this 
communication. "His Majesty," wrote Richelieu, "finds 
great difficulties concerning the return of Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, who has done a great deal of mischief, and may do 
more in future, and may, for the same reasons, do good, 
and bring advantage to the King's service." 

But one by one, discouraged by the victory at La 
Rochelle, all the prominent persons compromised in the 
late intrigues were obtaining the King's pardon ; His 
Majesty would certainly have to end by granting the 
Duchess hers. But in any case, Louis XTII did not intend 
to allow her name to figure in his Treaty of Peace with 
England. Nevertheless, before that document was actually 
signed — this was to take place on iVpril 24, 1629, — he 
consented to her return to Dampierre; she was to go back 
unobserved, to live there quietly — there were to be no more 
cabals. The Duchess acquiesced. 

Thus, towards the end of 1628, less than two months 
after the fall of La Rochelle, Mme. de Chevreuse was back 
in France. She returned as untamed as ever, as full of 
bitterness against Cardinal Richelieu. At Court, the 
King's pardon produced divers impressions. Gaston 
d'Orleans made a mock of it, remarking to Marcheville 
with his usual levity (and a thrust at the part Mme. de 
Chevreuse had played as go-between in the business of 
Anne of Austria and Buckingham), that the lady had 
"been brought back so that the Queen might have more 

133 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

opportunities of bearing a child!" "A devilish idea!" 
adds Richelieu, who reports the observation. 

The Duchess had hardly reached Dampierre when, 
having no intention of living shut up in her country-house, 
she caused a request to be addressed to the King of 
England to intercede in her favour, and get her leave to go 
back to Court. The Duke of Lorraine and Anne of Austria 
added their prayers to the English King's request. 
Charles I spoke to the French Ambassador, M. de 
Chateauneuf : he wrote to Louis XIII "in order that it 
might please his Majesty to reinstate the Duchesse de 
Chevreuse within his Court" : he added that "she was his 
kinswoman, that she had suffered for her love for him, that 
he felt himself obliged to assist her and address this prayer 
to His Majesty, that he would confide the business to 
his Ambassador, and would request him to write the King 
the instances he had remitted to him." Chateauneuf 
replied that there were difficulties; Mme. de Chevreuse, he 
declared, "was a woman whose spite surpassed that of 
her sex, however spiteful that might be, and it was a 
proved thing that several persons of pov/er and condition 
had been turned away from their duty to the King by their 
adherence to her passions." Then Charles I sent a special 
messenger to Louis XIII to press his request. 

This fresh interference made the King angry. Just 
at that moment, a sharp discussion was going on with 
the English authorities about a French Lady of the Bed- 
chamber, whom the King of France desired to place about 
the person of his sister Henrietta-Maria, according to the 
terms of the marriage contract, which Charles refused to 
carry out. "He makes difficulties," wrote the King of his 
brother-in-law, "about a Lady of the Bedchamber whom 
he does not know, and whom I would choose gentle and 
good-tempered, because he says she would disturb the 
peace of his Household and the understanding between 
himself and the Queen, and he wants me to take one whom 

134 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

I know only too well, and who has always brought 
trouble into my house ! " On April 30, 1629, Richelieu 
wrote to M. de Ranee, private secretary to Marie de 
M^dicis : "Ensiland asks for Mme, de Chevreuse : we do 
not care to agree, for reasons well known to the Queen- 
Mother." 

These reasons grew more and more numerous. That 
very year, 1629, when Louis XIII and the Cardinal had 
departed to the Italian frontier, whither they had been 
summoned by external complications, Gaston d'Orleans, 
then a widower — for Mile, de Montpensier had died in 
childbirth, not very long after her marriage — had betrayed 
his intention of marrying the Princess Marie, daughter of 
the Due de Nevers, as his second wife. Louis XIII was 
determined this marriage should not take place. As early 
as in March 1629, he had been cognizant of the fresh 
intrigues to which the plan was giving rise. The foreign 
foe was finding its account in them. Both Charles I of 
England, who still clung to a policy hostile to France and 
Spain, and the Duke of Lorraine, regarded these external 
dissensions as a means of causing difficulties for Louis 
XIII on his Alpine frontier. Berulle reported to Richelieu, 
in the name of Marie de Medicis, then acting as Regent in 
Paris, that Anne of Austria had arranged with Mirabel, the 
Spanish Ambassador, that Gaston should slip over into 
Flanders, so as to be married at once. This idea had come 
from Mme. de Chevreuse. She had wanted to go into 
Flanders herself, nobody knew why, or rather people 
easily guessed : Marie de Medicis had forbidden her to 
move. 

On the other hand, the business with the Duke of 
Lorraine was in a bad way. Mme. de Chevreuse kept 
Charles IV informed of everything that could affect him ; 
and Anne of Austria, instigated by the Duchess, gave the 
Duke information too, sent La Porte to him, and opened 
communications of her own with Spain, through Mirabel. 

135 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

A gentleman who had been sent to Paris by the Duke of 
Lorraine travelled to Dampierre to see Mme. de Chevreuse. 
On July 7, 1629, Richelieu writes to M. de Ranee: "The 
cabals in Lorraine and Spain, due to the Duchesse de 
Chevreuse, are unendurable. The King very much wishes 
Mme. de Chevreuse could be seized and taken to the Forest 
of Vincennes, in that case it would be necessary that 
nobody should see her." But once more unexpected 
events were to alter the views of the Government, and lead 
it to show favour to the dangerous Duchess it would fain 
have seen in prison ! 

To prevent her son Gaston from marrying the Princess 
Marie, the Regent had induced the young girl to come to 
Paris, and had then shut her up — or something very like 
it — in the Castle of Vincennes. Louis XIII and Richelieu 
both disapproved of this step ; they considered it quite 
incorrect. Marie de M6dicis took offence. Monsieur 
was so furious that he left France, and took refuge in 
Lorraine ; whence he was only got back with the greatest 
difficulty. This business hurried on the quarrel that 
had long been brewing between the Queen-Mother and 
Richelieu. 

From the day on which the King's mother succeeded, in 
spite of her son's wishes, in procuring the entrance of 
Richelieu into the Council — a thing she had done out of her 
conviction that she was thus introducing a creature of her 
own, and that she herself would now be sovereign mistress 
of everything — the Cardinal, deeply conscious of what he 
owed the King and the State, and impelled by the highest 
sense of his duty, had been far more zealous in his defence 
of the interests of the kingdom, than in his obedience to 
the suggestions of his former benefactress. Marie de 
M6dicis, harsh-tempered, shrewish, and anything but 
intelligent, had not been able to stomach what she called 
the Cardinal's "ingratitude": the relations between her 
and Richelieu had become embittered. But, and this was 

136 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

only just, Louis XIII, who had stood out so long against 
his mother's wishes, before he would admit the prelate, 
whom he so heartily disliked, to his council board, having 
learnt, as he had, day by day, to appreciate more and more 
highly the merits of a Minister whose incomparable value 
made itself increasingly apparent, now defended the Car- 
dinal against his mother's attacks. When she, in her rage, 
suggested that Richelieu should be driven out of the post 
of high confidence in which she herself had laboured to 
place him, the King refused to listen to her ; the disagree- 
ment between the Queen-Mother and the Cardinal was to 
transform itself into a struggle between mother and son, 
and to end in steps of the most extreme nature. 

Anne of Austria, who had never liked Marie de M^dicis, 
to whom she ascribed her own domestic unhappiness, took 
up the cudgels against her. Mme. de Chevreuse, faithful 
to her sovereign, did the same. Richelieu fancied the two 
fair ladies were pronouncing in his favour; he was grati- 
fied : "Mme. de Bouillon has told me," wrote the Cardinal, 
"that Mme. de Chevreuse is going on well, and giving 
good advice to the Queen." From one episode to another, 
the Queen-Mother's aggressive hostility reached such a 
pitch, at last, that Louis XIII, thoroughly wearied out, 
resolved to bring matters to a crisis. In the month of July, 
1 63 1, he was at Compi^gne, and his mother with him. 
Suddenly, one morning, he quitted the palace, leaving the 
castle — an ancient edifice dating from the Middle Ages, 
and built against the walls of the town, on the site of the 
present one — surrounded by troops, and caused it to be 
signified to Marie de Medicis that she must retire to 
Moulins and remain confined to that place for the future; 
he was sending her into exile, in fact. The Queen refused 
to obey, and in her anger, took to flight, crossed the 
frontier, and shortly afterwards sought refuge on foreign 
territory, in Flanders. She never was to enter the kingdom 
again. 

137 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

In the course of all these events, Richelieu had drawn 
nearer to Anne of Austria. The price of their reconcilia- 
tion was the return of Mme. de Chevreuse. "The Cardinal 
de Richelieu," says Mme. de Motteville, "to win her (the 
Queen) over, brought back Mme. de Chevreuse. No 
doubt she promised everything he asked of her. After his 
quarrel with the Queen-Mother, his benefactress, he tried 
to make it up with the Queen (Anne of Austria), and bind 
her to him through her favourite, and so put her back about 
her." 

Highly delighted, Mme. de Chevreuse paid a visit to the 
Cardinal. "She made him a thousand protestations of 
friendship and sincerity in the King's service and his own." 
A conversation ensued. Agreement was likely to serve 
both parties' ends. They came to an arrangement. Mme, 
de Chevreuse vowed she would be frank and loyal, that she 
would henceforward avoid all commerce with the Duke of 
Lorraine and other foreigners, and reveal everything that 
might come to her knowledge to the Cardinal ; Richelieu 
promised to stand by her. 

Then she and the Cardinal began to vie with each other 
in attentions, civilities, and mutual respect. Mme. de 
Chevreuse having fancied, for a moment, that the Cardinal 
had betrayed the existence of their understanding, Riche- 
lieu lost no time about writing to reassure her: "I should 
esteem myself very unworthy to be honoured by your 
kindness if I were capable of abusing it as I have heard 
you had some idea I might have done. If I had been guilty 
of such a meanness as to reveal that which it pleased you 
to confide to me, I should have been a traitor to myself. 
I confess to you that I could not have believed you would 
have suspected me of committing such a fault. But instead 
of being scandalized at that, I only beseech you to have 
greater confidence in me for the future, and to believe I 
would rather fail to my own self than fail to prove to you, 
on every occasion, that I am, and always shall be, ready 

138 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

to give you testimonies far more difficult than those in 
question here." 

Was the Cardinal sincere ? He was making use of 
Mme. de Chevreuse for the time being, at any rate. The 
French Government was desirous of detaching the Duke of 
Lorraine from the cause of the House of Austria, and the 
Duchess served its purpose in this matter. The Duke 
pledged his faith. Urged by Mme. de Chevreuse, he came 
to Paris. A treaty between Lorraine and France was 
signed at Vic on January 6, 1632. Mme. de Chevreuse was 
the author of the agreement; she had kept her word. 

Her fortunes had risen high indeed ! x^fter having in- 
spired Richelieu and Louis XHI with the feelings of which 
I have made my readers aware, after having herself given 
vent to opinions which should naturally have proved an 
eternal barrier to her return to the Court, she found herself 
back in that same Court, considered, respected, spoilt, 
powerful, hedged in with homage and deference. A short 
time after her return to France, M. de Chevreuse had a 
quarrel with M. de Montmorency, whom he had called a 
knave, because he had written some insulting rhymes 
about him. He drew his sword, in the lower court of the 
Louvre, between the guardroom of the Swiss Guard, and 
that of the French Guard ; several thrusts were exchanged, 
and before the soldiers were able to part them, both com- 
batants were lying on the ground. It was a serious busi- 
ness ! M. de Chevreuse jumped upon his horse and fled. 
Any other man would have lost his head for his pains. 
Richelieu went to Mme. de Chevreuse, and told her the 
Duke might come back. He returned, and was made over, 
as a matter of form, to an officer of the Guard, who was 
ordered to keep his eye upon him ; and he was desired to 
go and spend a fortnight at Dampierre; the punishment 
was light, and he ovv^ed it to the favour his wife enjoyed. 

And Mme. de Chevreuse responded to Richelieu's asse- 
verations by expressing the deepest feelings of devotion. 

139 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

"Sir," she wrote, in the course of the earlier months 
of the year 1632, "I should not have thought myself so 
fortunate as to be remembered by you amidst the occupa- 
tions you now have : I find myself agreeably mistaken in 
this opinion ; this leads me to hope that I may be so to my 
still greater advantage, touching the sentiments you 
entertain for me; I desire it with equal passion and 
sincerity. I am resolved to prove to you by every action 
of my life that I am, Sir, your very humble and obedient 
servant." So close was the understanding between the- 
Duchess and the Cardinal, that Richelieu would dictate the 
letters he desired she should write to Lorraine, for instance, 
with the object of preventing the Duke from listening to 
the suggestions of Gaston d'Orl6ans ; we still possess rough 
drafts of these missives in Richelieu's own hand; on the 
back of the documents we find, written by the Cardinal's 
secretary, de Cherr6, the words, "To M. de la Ville, the 
Duke of Lorraine's Gentleman-in-waiting, by the hand of 
Mme. de Chevreuse." Was she sincere either? Had not 
Richelieu his own reasons for doubting her faithfulness ? 
Among these, one, surely, ought to have stirred his sus- 
picions, and kept them on the alert — the intimacy between 
the Duchess and Anne of Austria ! 

It was a very close intimacy. The Duchess and the 
Queen were never apart : they were seen together every- 
where. Now Anne of Austria had never forgiven the 
Cardinal. Richelieu was perfectly well aware of this; he 
suspected that any conversation concerning him, in which 
the sovereign bore her part, handled him in a manner the 
reverse of kind. Just about this time, he received intelli- 
gence that the then Keeper of the Privy Seal, Charles 
de I'Aubespine, Marquis de Chateauneuf, was holding 
long interviews and frequent conferences with the Queen 
and Mme. de Chevreuse. What was the meaning of all 
these secret meetings? What was the Keeper hatching 
with the two Princesses ? Richelieu began to wonder. 

140 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

M. de Chateauneuf, the scion of an ancient race, many 
members of which had been Privy Councillors and 
Secretaries of State, had, as was customary amongst such 
families, spent a regular career in the King's Household. 
He had subsequently been appointed to the Treasury, with 
Jeannin and de Thou, in i6i i ; had been selected for special 
missions, such as that of Ambassador to the English 
Court, and had shown much intelligence in his perform- 
ance of these functions. After one of the crises in the 
struggle between Marie de Medicis and Richelieu, he had 
been appointed Keeper of the Seals, in the place of 
Marillac, who had fallen into disgrace. He was an active, 
hard-working, and what was exceedingly precious, a very 
compliant man ; he had been selected to preside over the 
judicial commission charged with the prosecution of his 
predecessor's brother. Marshal Louis de Marillac, who had 
been compromised with him in the same intrigues, and had 
sentenced him to the scaffold — the punishment had been 
considered severe. Appointed, at a later date, head of the 
commission that was to decide the fate of the Due de 
Montmorency, he had sent that nobleman to his death : he 
gained the reputation of being an over-obsequious courtier. 
He was full of ardour, energy, and fire; he thirsted for 
glory ; he was well versed in business affairs, and his 
friends were many. His enemies, who reproached him 
with his sentences on Marillac and Montmorency, declared 
his ambition had led him basely to betray his conscience 
and his honour, but they nevertheless treated him with ex- 
treme consideration ; of this Mme. de Motteville assures us. 

One grave weakness disfigured his character : he was too 
fond of women, and this brought about his ruin. He 
delighted in female society, in paying compliments, and 
being flattered by fair ladies. When he rose to be a 
Minister, in whose hands the power of showing grace and 
favbur lay, he was immensely courted; he could hardly 
have stood out against his flatterers. In spite of his two 

141 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

and fifty years, his feelings were still easily fired ; his love 
affairs had been numberless. "His weakness," writes 
Mme, de Motteville, "was the cause of that the ladies 
had for him ; their intrigues contributed greatly to bis 
grandeur and good fortune, and also to his wretchedness." 

He was fascinated by the Duchesse de Chevreuse. 
Where was the man who was not ? She was thirty-one, in 
all the splendour of her fresh and brilliant beauty. The 
man of fifty could not resist her. This autumnal passion 
was fierce, devoid of reserve, devoid of dignity. We have 
his love-letters. "I await your commands with impa- 
tience," he writes, with reference to some service she had 
asked him to do two of her friends, "if you would give them 
to me by word of mouth, I should be happier than I 
deserve, or dare expect to be. The King will be here to- 
morrow, and will only stay two days. Good God ! Must 
I spend one day of my life without serving you ? How 
mean I think myself to spend my care on any other thing, 
and how good you are to permit me to swear my eternal 
fidelity and obedience to you, without being able to prove 
them by my service ! As to the two persons concerning 
whom you have spoken to me, it is enough that you should 
say ' I desire,' for it is for you to command, and for me to 
obey." 

And with reference to another recommendation he 
writes: 

"It is enough that I should know the person of whom 
you speak is your servant, to oblige me to do what he 
wishes. Good God ! How unhappy am I to find so few 
means of serving you, with all my desire to do it ! But 
your bodily resemblance to the divinities is too great for 
you to fail in possessing all the qualities of their souls. 
That is the cause which makes you accept, even as they 
do, the adoration which is rendered you, though that can 
in nowise add to your glory, when it is paid you from a 
heart filled with obedience, fidelity and respect ! " 

142 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

After Chateauneuf's arrest, at a later date, his papers 
were searched, and some threescore letters from Mme. de 
Chevreuse discovered among them. Charpentier, secre- 
tary to Cardinal Richelieu, made a copy of them for his 
master's use. That copy is now in our hands. In its pages 
we follow the Duchess day by day, amidst the refined 
subtleties of an extraordinarily finished coquette, applied to 
the service of the boldest possible spirit of intrigue. Few 
of the documents left us so thoroughly portray her real 
character. She did not care for Chateauneuf, of that there 
can be no doubt whatever ; but she made it her business to 
feed his passion, keep it alive, and continually excite it; 
she made advances to him; she kindled his jealousy; she 
drove him distracted : her aim (and she attained it) 
was to have him at her beck and call, so as to use him 
to carry out her plans : the strangest thing of all was 
the part played by Richelieu in the course of this 
correspondence. 

Alarmed, in fact, by the lengthy conversations that were 
going on, as he discovered, between Mme. de Chevreuse 
and the Keeper of the Seals, the Cardinal commanded 
his people to be on the watch. The execution at Toulouse 
of the Due de Montmorency, betrayed by Gaston d'Or- 
leans, might quite conceivably drive that Prince to seek 
safety in flight. Could it be that Anne of iVustria, Mme. de 
Chevreuse, Chateauneuf, and his friend the Chevalier de 
Jars were in connivance with Monsieur, and endeavouring 
to induce him to take this step ? Some certainty must be 
obtained. The Cardinal grew restless and anxious. The 
complications of his political existence — Heaven knows 
they had been numberless enough ! — -had thoroughly upset 
his over-sensitive nerves. He ended by watching the 
sayings and doings of Mme. de Chevreuse and Chateau- 
neuf with an attention so anxious that his irritation, at 
times, assumed all the appearances of downright jealousy. 
Was he in love with the lady himself ? The Duchess gives 

143 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

us to understand he was; Richelieu was Chateauneuf's 
junior, he was only forty-seven. Then the Keeper of the 
Seals took fright. Mme. de Chevreuse vowed she cared 
for no one but him, but at the same time laid artful stress 
on the Cardinal's attentions to her. 

"I think," she wrote, "the Cardinal is resolved to have 
no patience with me, night or day; he sends at nine o'clock 
in the morning to know how I am. I sent him word I have 
necessary business to transact with you. Since that he 
has written to me twice ; the first time to know what the 
business was, about which I had to speak to you, the 
second, to beg me not to proceed until he had first seen, 
you, or sent me word : you perceive his foolishness, and 
how much trouble he gives me ! You shall soon have news 
of me, and hear when I can see you." And again : "It is 
not because I have promised you, but because I believe 
you deserve it, that I hold you in such high esteem ; do 
not grieve at not having let me see all the pain it cost you 
to leave me, if only it be as great as that you showed me : 
I am well-pleased with that, and glad to have seen your 
true feelings for once, shorn of all pretence, and to have 
reason to be content with them." 

When Chateauneuf reproaches her with having neg- 
lected him, because, as he believes, she has promised 
Richelieu to do so, she protests : "You are wrong to have 
nursed such a thought," she writes, "and my soul is too 
noble to admit a feeling so vile ; for that reason I regard 
the Cardinal's favour no more than I dread his power, and 
never will I do anything that is unworthy of myself; I 
shall take great delight in pleasing you, and it will be a 
great trouble to me to cause you pain." Notwithstanding 
all this, she proceeds to reveal the advances Richelieu is 
making to win her over. A person had come to see her 
from the Cardinal, she says, who offered her the Minister's 
support, and told her in his name, "that it is his great 
desire to oblige me in the most important matters, and that 

144 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

he alone is in a position to do it; that nobody can be 
equal to him: all his protestations," she adds, "are mere 
fine words, followed by very paltry doings, and I put 
but little faith in any of them." And she continues: "1 
believe you so heartily mine that the best news I can give 
you is news of my health, which is better than it has 
been : for as to my resolve to value you above any- 
thing else in France, it is so firm that nothing can ever 
alter it." 

And, thereupon, she holds forth to Chateauneuf concern- 
ing a young nobleman who is likewise in love with her, 
and passionately too, and whose presence about her is a 
source of much annoyance to the Keeper of the Seals, 
M. de Brion, to wit : Francois de Levis Ventadour, the 
future Due d'Amville, Chief Equerry to Monsieur. 

This behaviour only makes the lover's heart more sore. 
The Duchess tells him a long story of a scene she has had 
with Richelieu, in the Queen's apartments. Richelieu had 
come to see Anne of Austria ; he stayed two hours : " He 
paid her (the Queen)," writes Mme. de Chevreuse, "many 
compliments, and loaded her with praises in my presence, 
whereas to me he spoke most coldly, and with a great 
affectation of carelessness and indifference, while I, accord- 
ing to my custom, behaved as if I did not notice his bad 
temper. When he tried to tease me about some small 
matter, I jested at him to the point of crying scorn upon his 
power : he was more astonished than angry, for he changed 
his tune then, and plunged into civilities and humilities of 
the lowliest kind. I know not whether it was because he 
would not betray his bad humour in the Queen's presence, 
or because he did not want to quarrel with me. To-morrow 
I am to see him at two o'clock : I will let you know what 
happens. Rest assured that when I cease to be yours, it 
will be because I have left this world altogether." 

And then she goes on to M. de Brion. That gentleman 
is growing urgent, and passionately eager; he might be 
L 145 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

taken to be a lover who had rights over her : he talks like 
her master; Mme. de Chevreuse declares herself very much 
vexed: but that is on Richelieu's account. "M. de Brion 
has sent to me, and, v^ithout any regard for my entreaties, 
or for the reasons I have represented to him, insists on 
going whithersoever 1 go, and says that nothing can pre- 
vent him from so doing, even if, in my fear of the Car- 
dinal's anger if he should find it out, I should desire the 
contrary. I assure you this talk on de Brion's part has both 
vexed and afflicted me, for I really could not endure it, and 
am very much grieved that he should have given me so 
great cause for quarrel, after having given me so much 
reason for praising him : I am resolved I will not see him, 
if he comes against my will, and I will not even accept 
messages from him, if he does not repent him of the fashion 
in which he has spoken to me." 

Then, at last, Chateauneuf lost patience. Was the 
Duchess his property or not ? He insisted on being told ! 
Rather alarmed, Mme. de Chevreuse protested her devotion 
in still stronger terms. She found herself impelled to make 
advances on her own account : " It will never grieve me to 
see marks of your affection," she writes to the Keeper of 
the Seals, "so do not fear to weary me with your letters, 
but continue rather to delight me by giving me proofs 
of your recollection of me as often as you can : I promise 
you a larger share of mine than that you have asked of 
me. 

But, unfortunately, the position taken up by Richelieu 
was meanwhile growing more and more alarming. Mme. 
de Chevreuse is not playing with Chateauneuf, this time, 
when she communicates the fears with which the Cardinal's 
sentiments inspire her. "Never," writes the Duchess to 
her friend, "have I had so much trouble, about holding 
converse with you as at this moment. You shall know all 
the details of my conversation with the Cardinal at our 
first meeting, for I can say no more in writing, except that 

146 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

it was not without good reason that I begged you to speak 
ill of me to the Cardinal. I shall not see you till to- 
morrow : M. de Chevreuse will speak to you at six o'clock 
in the evening : he is going to see the Cardinal, who is 
beside himself." 

Richelieu seems, indeed, to have grown more and more 
angry about the dangerous understanding he had dis- 
covered between the Queen, Mme. de Chevreuse, and the 
Keeper of the Seals. His rage betrayed itself : he grew 
impatient, domineering, tormenting. The Duchess attri- 
buted his jangling nerves to his passion for herself ! 
"The Cardinal's tyranny," she writes, "increases every 
moment, and his extravagances are worse than those of 
M. de Brion. He rages and swears because I do not go to 
see him, and because I do see various people here, and 
amongst them M. de Brion, whom I am resolved not to have 
in my own house again, because I know the King vows 
he is a spy. Judge of the point the Cardinal's spite reaches 
when he makes an affair of State out of that ! The thing 
that vexes me is that the reason I have, on account of the 
love I bear my own self, for not seeing him, will be taken 
by the Cardinal to be my fear of making him angry again, 
which has led him to act in this fashion. I wrote to him 
twice, paying him compliments of which he is quite 
unworthy, and which I would never have made him but 
for the persecution of M. de Chevreuse, who told me I 
should thus purchase peace. I think the King's favour 
has swelled his arrogance beyond all measure. He 
thinks he will terrify me with his fury, and persuades 
himself, in my opinion, that there is nothing I would not 
do to appease it : but I would rather make up my mind to 
perish than make my submission to the Cardinal ! His 
glory is not only unendurable to me, but odious ! He told 
M. de Chevreuse that my temper was insufferable to a man 
of feeling like himself (it is his meanness that has led him 
to this opinion of it), and that he was resolved not to pay 

147 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

me any particular duty, since I was not capable of bestow- 
ing my friendship and confidence on him alone! M. de 
Chevreuse has had a little quarrel with me, because 
the Cardinal's insolence has so intimidated him that he 
would fain have persecuted me into basely submitting 
to it." 

The Cardinal appears to have done everything he could 
to bring Mme. de Chevreuse back to the performance of 
her former promises. Did he feign to be in love with her? 
The Duchess herself wondered. "I hardly know how to 
represent my interview with the Cardinal to you," she 
writes, "except by telling you that he betrays as deep 
a passion for me as I perceived, in old days, in the heart 
of Lord Holland. But even as I have always held that 
one to be real, I believe it (the passion) to be false in the 
case of the Cardinal, who vows he keeps nothing back 
from me, and desires to do absolutely everything I 
command him, on condition that I live with him after 
such a fashion that he may feel certain he stands higher 
in my esteem and confidence than any other person on 
the earth." 

Richelieu persevered, raining supplications on her; his 
persistence became alarming. He tormented Mme. de 
Chevreuse. "I am in despair," writes that lady, "over 
what the Cardinal has communicated to me this evening. 
He has sent me an express messenger, to beseech two 
things of me. One for my own interest, and the other for 
his satisfaction ; which were : the first — not to speak to 
M. de Brion, the second— not to see you : this last, alone, 
is any trial to me. Nevertheless, my determination to 
prove my affection for you is stronger than all the 
Cardinal's importance. Send me word how I may see you 
without the Cardinal's knowledge, for I will do whatever 
you think best for that purpose, since I passionately long 
to talk with you." 

And in another letter: "I have seen him this evening 

148 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

[the Cardinal], and find him more resolved than ever to 
persecute me : never have I found him so troubled in mind 
as to-day, nor heard him so uneven in his talk, so that 
often he was in a desperation of anger, and in another 
moment he would calm down, and fall into the most 
extreme humility. He cannot endure that I should esteem 
you, and can do nothing to prevent it. Farewell ! I 
must see you at all costs ! Send me an answer, and beware 
of the Cardinal, for he is spying on us, both you and 
me ! " 

And in yet another : "Although I am not well, I will not 
omit to tell you how my visit to the Cardinal passed off. 
He spoke to me of his love, which he declares to be so 
great as to have caused his illness, by the distress of my 
behaviour to him ! He enlarged on my conduct in long 
speeches of complaint, especially as regards your person, 
and concluded that he cannot live on, in his present 
feeling for me, if I do not assure him I have changed my 
feeling for him : to which I replied that I had always 
endeavoured to give him reason to be pleased with me, and 
desired to do so more than ever. He pressed me hard to 
know how things were between you and me, saying that 
all the world believed us to be in the closest possible 
understanding, which I absolutely denied. I will say no 
more at this moment, but believe me that I esteem you as 
much as I despise him, and that I shall never have a 
secret for you, nor any confidence in him ! " 

A curious situation, indeed ! Chateauneuf, bitterly 
annoyed, poured forth his rage against Richelieu, and 
Mme. de Chevreuse responded: "I have a hatred of the 
Cardinal's tyranny, which is even greater than yours; but 
I am resolved to overcome it, and not to complain about it. 
Never have I so longed to talk with you as in this hour. 
The Cardinal vows that I shall soon be on bad terms with 
you, that you do not care for me, and jeers about it : as 
far as I am concerned, I laugh at all that : I believe in your 

149 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

fidelity and your affection, and will give you the same all my 
life, provided that, even as you have deserved that I should 
form this good opinion of you, you do not make yourself 
worthy that I should lose it. I counsel you, not being able 
as yet to say that I command you, and not choosing to say 
that I beg you, to wear the diamond I now send you, so 
that when you look at the stone, which has two qualities — 
one, that of hardness, and the other, of a brilliance so great 
that it can be seen afar off, and reveals its smallest 
blemish — you may remember that you must hold firmly to 
your promises, if they are to be pleasing to me, and that 
you must never make a blunder." 

And as Chateauneuf's bitterness against Richelieu rose 
higher, Mme. de Chevreuse increased the fervour of the 
expression of her attachment to the Keeper of the Seals : 
"I believe you to be mine utterly," she writes, "and I 
promise that I will treat you eternally as mine; though the 
whole world should neglect you, I shall esteem you so 
faithfully, all my life long, that if you love me truly, as you 
say you do, you will have reason to rejoice at your good 
fortune, for all the powers of the earth will never drive me 
to change my mind : this I swear to you, and charge you to 
believe it, and to love me faithfully." And then comes 
her final word, to which she has been leading up. "I 
assure you I will command you always, and I order you to 
obey me, not only so as to follow your own inclination, if 
it so leads you, but to satisfy my desire, which is to dispose 
absolutely of your will : this is the secret which I did not 
tell you yesterday, and which I promised you should know 
to-day." 

From "that time forward she ceased coquetting with 
Chateauneuf, she swore that Richelieu might do what he 
chose, she would never yield to his advances: "Not all 
his prosperity," she writes, "will have the power of 
bringing me into subjection to the point of making me 
dependent on his whims; if he has an extravagant fancy 

150 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

for me, do not let that matter disturb you. Never was there 
anything to compare with his folly ! he has sent, and 
written me, the strangest complaints : he says I am per- 
petually making game of him, that he knows of a surety 
that I have an understanding with you, and that your 
people never budge out of my house : that I see Brion 
because he is his enemy, and on purpose to vex him : that 
the whole world says he is in love with me, that the King 
believes it, that he cannot endure my behaviour any 
longer : this is the Cardinal's condition ! " 

Was the Cardinal really in love with Mme. de Chev- 
reuse? She thought so, and desired to produce that 
impression on others. But could Richelieu himself have 
discerned, in his own eager and passionate heart, how 
much of his feeling was pure political anxiety, and how 
much a disturbance of his sentimental being ? His 
Memoirs confine themselves to the political aspect of the 
business. They set forth his anxiety in connection with 
the understanding between Chateauneuf and Mme. de 
Chevreuse : and assert that the Keeper of the Seals, 
swept off his feet by his passion for the Duchess, had 
thrown himself into the cabals of the "factious ladies": 
that these ladies were plotting with foreign powers against 
the safety of the State : and events were destined to justify 
the correctness of this version of the story. 

Affected by a multiplicity of causes, the incidents of 
Gaston's revolt, the growing hostility of Anne of Austria 
to the Cardinal, and Mme. de Chevreuse's own hatred of 
him, the Queen and her adherents had again begun to 
intrigue with foreign courts. Chateauneuf had allowed 
himself to be carried in their train. He was in a position 
to supply information as to the councils of the Government. 
Richelieu was soon advised of the "sincere and faithful 
admiration " for Spain professed by the Queen's circle : 
he knew the praises of the Spanish alliance were being 
constantly sung in that quarter; that through Mme. de 

I5T 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Chevreuse, the Keeper of the Seals was in communication 
with divers persons in the service of England ; that he was 
well acquainted with all Monsieur's projects. Louis XIII, 
in his anger, desired to take severe steps at once. But 
Richelieu thought it wiser to wait: "I have just received 
notice," writes the King to his Minister, on February 4, 
^^33f "that a craftsman, newly come from England, has 
gone to wait on Mme. de Chevreuse at Jouarre. If she 
reports this to you herself, it will be some proof of her 
amendment; if she says nothing of it, confess at least, for 
the last time, that she is deceiving you and laughing at 
both you and me. I will confess to you that two things 
vex me beyond measure, and sometimes rob me of my 
sleep ! — the insolence of Parliament, and the mock the 
persons you wot of make of me, not forgetting you. 
You know how I trust you in every business of mine; 
believe me in these two matters, and we shall set them 
right." 

It was useless to fly in the face of facts. Before long, 
they demonstrated that Chateauneuf, at the prayer of Mme. 
de Chevreuse, was betraying State secrets to her; he had 
given the Duchess notice of an attack to be made on a 
fortress in Lorraine ; she had warned the Duke, who had 
taken his measures accordingly, and the attempt had failed. 
Plans of campaign had leaked out, the Duke of Lorraine 
was kept informed of the undertakings against him dis- 
cussed at the King's Council Board. Certain letters written 
by Chateauneuf were intercepted, they contained proofs of 
his treason. From the English Court, Louis XIII received 
warning that the Keeper of the Seals intended to get the 
Cardinal driven out, and to step himself into his shoes. 
The adherents of Gaston d'Orleans, it was asserted, 
reckoned on Chateauneuf's help, and were in correspon- 
dence with him. Mme. de Chevreuse went about openly 
retailing information which could not have reached her 
through any channel save that of the Keeper of the Seals. 

152 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

In a Memorandum dated the end of February, 1633, 
Richelieu set forth the piled up grievances of the Govern- 
ment against Chateauneuf ; it was impossible for the King 
to retain a Minister who had behaved himself in such a 
fashion ; he announced his intention of dismissing 
the Duchess's friend; he had come to the end of his 
patience. 

On the morning of February 25, 1633, the King, then 
at his palace of St. Germain en Laye, sent an order to 
Chateauneuf to deliver up the Seals ; very shortly after- 
wards, a Captain of the Guard, M. de Gordes, arrested the 
Minister. Chateauneuf made no complaint. He was 
conducted to Angouleme, and placed in confinement there. 
His nephew was arrested likewise, and the Chevalier de 
Jars as well ; the family and friends of the disgraced 
Minister took to flight. By the King's order, Bouthillier 
and Bul^on searched Chateauneuf's lodging, and there 
found a quantity of correspondence, amongst which were 
three-and-thirty letters from Montague, two-and-thirty 
from Henrietta-Maria, and all those of Mme. de Chev- 
reuse. The prisoner, under cross-examination, "accused 
himself, as much as anybody chose, of having loved the 
ladies too dearly," but declared all the rest to be "women's 
nonsense and silly talk." He was left in his prison, and 
was to lie there till the death of Louis XHL 

As to Mme. de Chevreuse, the Government's perplexity, 
as always, was extreme. Any rigorous treatment of her 
seemed fraught with the most serious difficulties. And 
further, her services were really needed at that particular 
moment. Monsieur had left the kingdom, and was stirring 
up the Duke of Lorraine against the King. The Duke 
had raised an army, and there was a fear that he would call 
on the Emperor to come and help him : in Richelieu's 
opinion, Mme. de Chevreuse was the only person likely 
to be able to induce him to lay down his arms. The 
Duchess was invited to proceed to Lorraine and enter into 

J53 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

negotiations for this purpose. She, who had been living 
in great anxiety ever since the arrest of Chateauneuf, and 
was, indeed, thoroughly frightened, did not dare to refuse. 
"Although this negotiation was not to her taste," writes 
La Porte, "Mme. de Chevreuse, to prove her zeal, acted in 
the matter against her own feelings, in the belief that the 
Duke of Lorraine would not be so easily moved : but she 
was deceived, for the Abbe du Dorat (who had been sent 
to act with her), so exerted himself that he induced his 
Highness to disband his army," 

But this service once obtained, Louis XIII found it 
impossible to endure the idea of having Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, whom he so detested, against whom he had so many 
just reasons of complaint, under his eyes, at his own Court. 
He waited awhile; but in the month of June, he made up 
his mind, and requested M. de Chevreuse to be so good as 
to conduct his wife to Couzi^res, near Tours. There was 
nothing for it but to obey. 

Anne of Austria begged the King's leave to see the 
Duchess before she departed: unwillingly, His Majesty 
consented. Richelieu sought the same permission, on the 
plea that Mme. de Chevreuse desired to speak to him. 
"You ask me," wrote the King, "if you may see Mme. de 
Chevreuse, who wishes to bid you farewell ; you know 
very well what pleasure the Queen has given me by asking 
my leave to see her; I know that her visit cannot serve 
your interests : you know very well that it will not be 
agreeable to me : that said, do what you will, and be 
assured that I will always be the best master to you that 
the world has ever seen." 

Mme. de Chevreuse departed; she made no protest. 
The punishment meted out to her was, on the whole, a 
gentle one : it was better for her to betake herself to 
Touraine, than to go and vegetate in some foreign country, 
which would have been the only other resource open to her. 

154 



THE EXILE IN LORRAINE 

Before she quitted Paris, she had a long interview with 
Anne of Austria; and they agreed to exchange constant 
letters. Did Louis XIII gain much by driving the fair 
intriguer out of his Court? Far or near, at home or 
abroad, the Duchesse de Chevreus'e was destined to remain 
a thorn in his side ! 



155 



CHAPTER VI 

THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

Couziferes^ — Mme. de Chevreuse intrigues with Anne of Austria — The 
affair of the Val de Grace — Mme. de Chevreuse in danger — She 
takes to flight — Her journey across France in disguise — Marsillac, 
Malbati, Spain — 1634-37. 

CouzifeRES is a charming little country house on the slopes 
of the valley of the Indre, near Tours. Woods lie all round 
it. A great pleasure-ground, the outline of which may even 
yet be traced, though its area is now covered by a thick 
growth of trees, stretched its wide space, bright with sun- 
light and gay with flowers, in^ front of the cheerful dwelling. 
The house, though of small dimensions, is tolerably con- 
venient. The partitions of the rooms as they were in the 
old days may still be traced. In one wing there remains 
a room, with a heavy stone chimney-piece and open rafters, 
which has preserved its ancient title, "the chamber of M. 
le Prince " — the Prince de Gu6m^ne. The park, with its 
ancient walls, is just as it was in the seventeenth century. 
The surrounding country is pretty, one of those smiling 
landscapes characteristic of Touraine, with undulating lines 
full of dignity and charm. Couzi^res had known its hour 
of fame when, after a quarrel followed by a brief armed 
struggle, Marie de M^dicis and Louis XIII met within 
its park walls, for the purposes of a temporary reconcilia- 
tion. This was in 1619. Mme. de Chevreuse took up her 
quarters in her new residence attended by 9. numerous 
following — comptroller, equerries, lackeys, waiting-women, 
grooms, and so forth. 

She had not been condemned to live in seclusion; she 

156 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

was free to go to Tours. She was even obliged to be there 
frequently, to see her men of business and discuss her 
affairs, which had fallen into great confusion, with them. 
And having no taste for living alone, she desired to 
frequent the society of the province, which included several 
of her personal friends. Further, she was sure to 
find better facilities, inside the town, for carrying on 
her secret correspondence without attracting attention, or 
being caught by Richelieu's agents. So she hired a house 
at Tours, belonging to the Archbishop, and called the 
Hotel de la Massetiere, and in it she often stayed. 

The life she led in this new residence was active and 
brilliant. She entertained, she went out hunting. Local 
gossip credited her with love affairs; so at least Talle- 
ment des Reaux assures us. Of one of these, the Arch- 
bishop of Tours was the harmless hero. 

He was an aged prelate — eighty years old — and had 
already been Bishop of Bayonne. M. Bertrand d'Eschaux 
—this was the Archbishop's name — by birth a Basque, far 
from good-looking, blind of one eye, very learned and very 
kind-hearted, had performed the marriage ceremony 
between Marie de Rohan and the Due de Luynes. He was 
a constant visitor in the house of Mme. de Chevreuse, who 
had the greatest confidence in him. Once, when she found 
herself in a difficulty, he lent her money, 25,000 livres, and 
looked after her correspondence. In spite of his great age 
and the dignity of his high rank in the Church, the charms 
of the young Duchess had produced their effect upon him, 
so at least she believed and declared : her boast was that 
she could make him do anything she chose. At certain 
critical junctures in her life he was to give her proofs of 
a really touching fidelity and devotion. 

As a member of their social circle, the ladies of the city 
of Tours found Mme. de Chevreuse less satisfactory. They 
thought her decidedly in the way. The Due d'Orleans, 
passing through the town at a slightly later date, wrote 

157 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

to M. de Chavigny, in the somewhat cavalier style he 
usually affected: "The players are at Tours. Every- 
body there is in good health. Mme. de Chevreuse came to 
see the performance of Le Cid, and stayed one day, on 
which I paid her as short a visit as I could contrive. 
Neither I nor the ladies of the town were the least grieved 
at her departure; rather the contrary, for she played us a 
thousand dirty tricks." Two other persons were even less 
pleased with the goings on of Mme. de Chevreuse : these 
were Louis XIII and the Cardinal de Richelieu. 

They knew a regular correspondence was being carried 
on between the Duchess and Anne of Austria. What 
did those letters convey? The King would fain have 
found out. "On my arrival here," he writes to the 
Cardinal, "I found, in the Queen's apartments, a certain 
Plainville, who goes to and fro for Mme. de Chevreuse, 
and who was welcomed into the Queen's presence like the 
Messiah. I write you this, to find out whether you think 
that when I know he has been dismissed I had better have 
him arrested and his letters taken from him." But Riche- 
lieu did not think it wise to act too hurriedly. And, indeed, 
apart from Plainville, Mme. de Chevreuse possessed many 
other means of corresponding with her friends in Paris : 
modest and obscure folk, some of them, others who were 
important personages; amongst these last, some English- 
men. 

First and foremost there was Lord Montague. He had 
been sent into France on a diplomatic mission by the King 
his master, and had betaken himself to Tours, to pay his 
duty to Mme. de Chevreuse. As much in love with her 
as ever, he had placed himself at her disposal, to ensure 
the safety of her communications with Paris. His atten- 
tions to Anne of Austria and to the Duchess were the 
subject of many a merry jest and gibe between the two 
young ladies. "The excess of your kindness," writes 
Mme. de Chevreuse to the Queen, "which leads you to 

158 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

wish you could spend an hour in this place, so as to make 
the happiness of those who live in it, gives me freedom to 
answer the joke you make at M. de Montague's expense, 
as to his stay here. I acknowledge that you have good 
cause to think it an advantage to him to spend some time 
at Tours, but for a reason very different from that you 
give, for it is certain that he needs to be a great deal away 
from you, to make him see that he is still a mortal man, 
since he is no longer dwelling with the angels. If I have 
any credit with you, he will soon be enjoying that felicity." 
Montague had not come over alone. He had brought 
a young English gentleman with him. His name was 
Craft. He had been presented to the Duchess, and the 
usual fate had overtaken him — he had fallen madly in love 
with her : Mme, de Chevreuse accepted his adoration. 
This young man's letters, which were intercepted, are still 
in existence. They afford proofs of one of the liveliest 
passions the Duchess ever inspired. "I cannot rest two 
days in the same place," he writes her from Calais, where 
he was waiting for weather calm enough to permit of his 
crossing to England, "without rendering an account of 
them to you : I hope to embark when I have finished this 
letter, and the thought of you will console me in all my 
misfortunes. I often see your portrait, and often kiss it. 
I pray you to think upon your poor servant, and upon the 
love he bears and always will bear you, having nothing 
in the world that is worth a thought, save yourself ! My 
heart and my soul are both yours utterly ! " " My passion 
for you is greater than I can express, and the resolve I 
have taken to be true to it will never suffer change ! I 
dread my own country, for I can never hope to see any- 
thing there that will bring me contentment. ... I will 
never love any but you, and that with all my heart and soul, 
and all my life long." Then, after he has reached London : 
"You owe me less thanks than ever for the passion I feel 
for you, for everybody here is so mean and contemptible 

159 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

that I know neither contentment nor comfort till the night 
falls, and I can be alone, and think of you." 

Apart from these Englishmen, there were other persons 
on whom the Duchess could rely to forward her correspond- 
ence : Marsillac, son of the Due de la Rochefoucauld, the 
future author of the Maxinies, who had been presented to 
her by Anne of iVustria, and whose regard for her was 
tinged with a deeper feeling ; he was only twenty-four ; 
M. de la Thibaudiere, a gentleman from the province of 
Poitou; M. Chennetier, a burgher of Tours, who lived 
in the Hotel de la Massetiere; a certain M. Julien, who 
gave writing lessons ; and above all, La Porte, Anne of 
Austria's own confidential servitor, the Queen's "cloak- 
bearer," a young man from Anjou, three-and-thirty years 
of age, intelligent, devoted, discreet, and, in a certain sense, 
the soul of honour. La Porte acted as secretary to Anne 
of Austria, kept the cyphers and seals, copied and sent or 
carried the letters. 

What was the object of all this correspondence ? 

On November 8, 1636, Richelieu wrote as follows to 
Chavigny : "As for the Queen, I will not tell you anything 
more, save that the old-established generosity of Mme. de 
Chevreuse has ever been the cause of the fact that in 
that country" (the Queen's circle) "the reverse of the 
King's will is always what is desired." To avenge herself 
on King and Cardinal, the Duchess had resolved to oppose 
his Mg,jesty's policy in every foreign Court to which she 
herself had access. She would negotiate, and the Queen 
should back her up : Anne of iVustria simply sailed in her 
wake. In England, the two Princesses made use of Craft 
and Montague ; in Lorraine they had a sister-in-law of 
Mme. de Chevreuse, the Abbess of Jouarre, who had the 
letters brought her by La Porte delivered in Nancy; in 
Flanders, the secretary of the English Ambassador, Auger, 
took in the letters, and passed them on to the Spanish 
Ambassador in Brussels, the Marquis de Mirabel, who 

160 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

undertook to see they reached their various destinations. 
"Thus," says La Porte in his Memoirs, "the Queen 
had news from every quarter without anybody being aware 
of it; and this' went on for some considerable time." It 
went on for nearly four years. 

The letters which the Government of Louis XIII suc- 
ceeded in stopping give us the general outline of the plot 
in which Mme. de Chevreuse was the chief mover. 

The first idea was to stir up Spain against France, and 
induce that country to join fcrces with those of Lorraine, 
Savoy, and the Empire. Instead of corresponding directly 
with Madrid, which was too far off, Mme. de Chevreuse 
addressed herself to the great personages of Spanish nation- 
ality then ruling the Low Countries. At Brussels she had 
lighted upon an intriguing woman, worthy of the part 
assigned her, in the person of Madeleine de Silly, wife 
of Charles d'Angennes du Fargis, a former Lady of the 
Bedchamber to Anne of Austria, who, after having dis- 
graced herself by her numerous love affairs, had been 
driven from Court because her foolish imprudence during 
her husband's embassy to the Court of Spain had deeply 
irritated the French Government. She had taken refuge 
in Brussels, and spent her time there fomenting cabals 
against her own country. Since open war had been 
declared between France and Spain, she had been keeping 
the Cardinal-Infante, brother of Anne of Austria, who 
commanded the Spanish troops in the Low Countries, fully 
informed of the movements of the French army, and sug- 
gesting to the Spanish authorities the measures they 
should take, the diversions they should create, and the 
attacks most likely to be attended with success, so as to 
embarrass the Cardinal's government. 

We have her letters to Anne of Austria, the Queen's 

replies, and the letters addressed by Anne of Austria and 

by the Duchess to Mirabel and to the Cardinal-Infante. 

Word was sent from Brussels to the Sovereign and to 

M i6i 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Mme. de Chevreuse of every happening in the camp of 
those of RicheUeu's enemies who had sought refuge in 
Flanders, among whom Marie de Medicis was the chief 
figure. It was the scene common to all emigrations — 
illusions, jealousies, discord, suspicion and penury. Mme. 
du Fargis, a most needy woman, was perpetually begging. 
"I beg to point out," she writes, "as I did in my last 
letter, how extremely necessitous my condition is, without 
a serving-man, without a coach, without any attendants, 
and without even the wherewithal to make me a gown ! 
What the Infante has given me hitherto has just sufficed 
to pay the debts my husband contracted ! Good God ! 
will these times never change? I am dying of hunger! " 
She entreats the Queen to recommend her to the Cardinal- 
Infante, ,so that he may increase the pension he gives her. 
She promises to write every week. Anne of Austria 
watches eagerly for her letters. Everybody in the Low 
Countries seems to be involved in this correspondence. 
Craft carries letters from Anne of Austria to Mme. du 
Fargis which tell her what she is to say to Mirabel, to 
the Cardinal-Infante; the Queen writes to them direct, and 
Mme. du Fargis reports to her. And, more serious still, 
the Queen, under the guidance of Mme. de Chevreuse, 
writes other letters to the King of Spain's Prime Minister, 
the Duque d'Olivares. 

The results attained are not, indeed, commensurate with 
the efforts made. The Spaniards do not attach much 
importance to these feminine tricks. The frivolity of the 
French refugees in the Low Countries has prejudiced their 
hosts against them : these " Frenchmen,'' according to 
Mirabel, "have not a grain of prudence in their heads! " 
Mirabel sends no reply to the letters from the Queen and 
the Duchess. Mme. de Fargis makes a complaint about it. 
Anne of Austria has to write three times over to the Infante 
before he condescends to give her any sign of life. "I beg 
you will tell Mirabel," she writes to Mme. du Fargis, "that 

162 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

I do not write to him until I see letters from him, because 
1 think mine weary him, and if you have a convenient 
opportunity, say the same thing to the Infante on my 
behalf." The humiliation of it ! But why should the 
Spaniards have taken the plottings of two foolish young 
women, who had no real influence in France, to be any- 
thing serious? The Queen herself acknowledges this. 
"I would gladly shed my blood to serve the Queen- 
Mother," she writes to Mme. du Fargis, "but that is not 
in my power, for I have very little influence over the 
Cardinal, though we appear to be on very good terms : 
but this is not the case, in fact, whatever anybody may 
think : here, in a few words, is the absolute truth." And 
in another letter : " Do not rely on my intervention in the 
matter of the Queen-Mother, and seek out some other 
means, for that you count on is not good. From my side 
you must expect nothing, for it is impossible for me to do 
anything." Marie de Medicis herself is so well aware of 
it that in her poverty and dejection she begins to think 
of being reconciled to her son, if he will only consent, 
and of abandoning her advocacy of the Spanish cause. 
But how, indeed, was any confidence to be, placed in her, 
in the Frenchmen about her, in the people in Paris who 
were keeping up intercourse with her ? 

Mme. de Chevreuse, alone among them ail, held on her 
way. The more hopeless her undertakings began to look, 
the more fiercely she laboured on them. In a document 
Anne of Austria was forced, at a later period, to draw 
up for the satisfaction of the King her husband, she 
supplies proof of the untiring activity of the Duchess. 
She admits that Mme. de Chevreuse received at Tours 
not only the intermediaries who habitually transmitted her 
correspondence, but persons who came to her direct from 
Lorraine ; she confesses that her friend was in the habit 
of sending this correspondence on to her, to the convent 
at the Val de Grace, in Paris, whither she herself repaired 

163 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

under pretence of performing her devotions, but with the 
real object of being alone, away from the Court, and 
free to deal at her convenience with the business of these 
intrigues; and that when she was absent from Paris, the 
letters were' forwarded to her by the Superior of the nuns, 
Mother Saint-Etienne, who, when she saw the superscrip- 
tion, "Give this letter to your kinswoman, who is in the 
county of Burgundy," knew what that meant and for whom 
the letter was intended. 

Did Anne of Austria realize the gravity of her own acts, 
and the danger to which she was exposing herself ? La 
Porte, in his endeavour to save his mistress, was to protest 
that the letters written by the Sovereign contained 
"nothing but gibes against the Cardinal de Richelieu, 
and that assuredly she never spoke of anything that was 
against the King or the State." But he was mistaken. 
Anne of Austria was a traitor. When one of the Cardinal's 
agents, the Abbe du Dorat, said to him on August 28, 
1637, "You must be prepared for every kind of frivolity 
and impertinence in that sex," he accurately defined the 
qualities of levity and thoughtlessness inherent in ladies 
who dabbled in such intrigues as this one. The most 
conclusive proof of this thoughtlessness lies in the fact 
that it never for one moment occurred to either of them 
that the day might come when Louis XIII would find out 
all about it ! 

From the very outset, in fact, Louis XIII and Richelieu, 
fully advised of the comings and goings between Couzieres 
and Paris, had been on the watch. "According to the 
orders of your Eminence," wrote Bullion to the Cardinal, 
"I have kept my eyes open. It is true, and I have always 
recognized the fact, that the Queen has no kindly feel- 
ing for you, and if she has not sinned with her tongue, 
her ears, it may be, have played you false — and this I do 
not doubt. I am working to find out all particulars with- 
out betraying myself. There can be no doubt that the 

164 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

cabals at Tours are still being carried on." Information 
came in from divers quarters. It was reported that two 
gentlemen had travelled out of Lorraine to Couzieres to 
see Mme. de Chevreuse, "one, named Mortale, a cavalry 
ofificer, dark, curly-haired, tall and stout, with full lips 
and wide nostrils; the other, Rochevalon, fair and blue- 
eyed, riding a white horse, and wearing a scarlet coat, a 
hat trimmed with a silver braid, and two white feathers 
and a yellow one." La Porte's movements were watched. 
The King was informed, one day, that he had gone to 
Tours, to request Mme. de Chevreuse to proceed in dis- 
guise to Orleans, there to meet Anne of Austria, who 
would be passing through the town. In a fury, Louis XIII 
vowed that if the story turned out true he would have La 
Porte thrown out of the palace windows. Thereupon La 
Porte, who had come to join his mistress at Orleans, 
entered the Queen's chamber, where the King was 
standing in front of the fire. 

"Whence come you?" said the King sharply. 

"From Fontainebleau." 

" I did not see you there ! " 

" I arrived very late at night, and your Majesty left very 
early the next morning." 

"But I met the Queen close to Artenay, and I did not 
see you in her suite ! " 

La Porte explained that his horse had lost a shoe, which 
had delayed him, and that he had galloped after his 
mistress to Artenay, where he had actually seen the King 
"hawking magpies in the vineyards." 

"Indeed ! " quoth the King. 

But how find out the truth ? How acquire the initial 
proof that would place the authorities in a position to 
open an inquiry, and force the culprits to confess their 
guilt ? The King and the Cardinal waited — they waited 
for months. It was not till early in the summer of 1637 
that they were to discover the document they longed to 

165 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

find : it was La Porte who, all unwittingly, was to deliver 
it into their hands. 

La Porte had a room in the Hotel de Chevreuse, in the 
Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, which he had furnished him- 
self, and in which he lived. He went for his meals to a 
tavern in the Rue Fromenteau, but it was in the Duchess's 
house that he made the necessary preparations for his 
missions and kept all his papers. 

Now one fine day, a letter from Anne of Austria, 
addressed to Mirabel, and which he was to hand to Auger, 
the secretary of the English Embassy, was intercepted — 
how, we know not — and carried to Louis XHL This time 
there could be no doubt about the matter. The proofs 
were in the King's possession. Richelieu, alarmed, would 
have temporized even then; but Louis XHI had made up 
his mind. The letter was known to have passed through 
La Porte's hands. " Of his own accord," writes the Cardinal 
in his Memoirs, "the King decided to arrest La Porte." 
This was in August. On the loth of that month, Louis 
Xni, who was at St. Germain, sent a message to Anne of 
Austria, desiring her to repair at once to Chantilly, where 
he desired to speak with her. La Porte suspected nothing. 
He had to send another letter of the Queen's for Mme. de 
Chevreuse, of which M. de la Thibaudi^re, who was going 
to Tours, was to take charge. Meeting La Thibaudiere in 
the courtyard of the Louvre, he tried to give him the 
packet, but the other, on the plea that he was not to start 
quite yet, begged the Queen's servant to keep it till the 
next day. After supper La Porte went into the St. 
Eustache quarter of the town to inquire, in the Queen's 
name, after the health of M. de Guitaut, a captain of the 
Guard, who had received a bullet wound in the thigh. 
About ten o'clock at night he left M. de Guit;aut's lodging, 
and was just about to pass between a two-horsed coach 
and the wall close to which it was standing, at the corner 
of the Rue des Vieux-Augustins and the Rue Coquilli^re, 

i66 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

when he was suddenly seized from behind, one person put 
his hands over liis eyes, others laid hold of his arms and 
legs, and in the twinkling of an eye he was picked up, 
thrown, before he could utter a cry, into the coach, and 
held down, while the vehicle was driven rapidly away. 
When it stopped, and La Porte was allowed to get out, 
he saw he was in the gloomy courtyard of the Bastille; 
his assailants had been five of the King's Musketeers, 
commanded by their lieutenant, M. Goulard, and fifteen or 
sixteen other Musketeers had formed the escort. 

He was searched. The letter to Mme. de Chevreuse was 
found. Who was the writer of that letter? demanded 
Goulard. They only had to look at it, replied La Porte; 
it bore the Queen's seal. He was thrown into a dungeon, 
protected by three locked doors; a truckle-bed and an 
earthen pot were the only pieces of furniture it contained. 
A soldier was left to guard the prisoner. Food was 
brought; then La Porte was left under lock and key. 

An official, M, le Roy de la Poterie, was deputed to 
make a search at the Hotel de Chevreuse. This search 
revealed nothing but some unimportant letters and cyphers. 
La Porte had hidden all the compromising papers in a 
hole in the wall at the corner of one of the windows. The 
hiding-place was concealed under a lump of plaster, and 
nobody knew anything about it. A servant-boy was 
seized, but he could only cry and vow he had nothing to 
tell. When La Porte was questioned about the letters and 
the cyphers, he gave the most hazy answers. 

The only real proof, in fact, was Anne of Austria's letter, 
but that was sufficient testimony of her relations with 
Flanders and with Spain. The letter to Mme. de Chev- 
reuse esta:blished that lady's complicity in the business. 
Richelieu decided to question La Porte himself. 

At eight o'clock the next evening, a coach escorted by 
the Provost's Lieutenant and four archers carried the 
prisoner from the Bastille to the Cardinal's palace. By 

167 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

way of the kitchen yard, the gardens and the ante-chamber, 
La Porte was led into Richeheu's chamber, where the 
Minister awaited him, attended by Seguier, the Chancellor, 
and Des Noyers, a Secretary of State. Richelieu began 
his examination. It was proved, he said, that the Queen 
had been keeping up a correspondence with Flanders and 
Spain, and that La Porte had been her intermediary. If 
he would acknowledge the facts, his fortune was made; 
he would not even have to go back to the Bastille. La 
Porte, who was quite unaware that the Queen's letter to 
Mirabel had been found, denied everything; he was 
absolutely in the dark. Then, said Richelieu, some other 
person had been carrying the letters : who was it ? La 
Porte declared he did not know. Thereupon Richelieu 
grew angry. If La Porte would not tell him anything, he 
should be tried, and the business would be a short one ; 
a subject's first duty, when his King ordered him to speak, 
was to obey. La Porte protested : his conscience could 
not command him to accuse the Queen of sending letters 
into Spain if he did not know she had been doing it ! 
"But she has given us proofs of it! " cried Richelieu, in 
a rage, "and we know she makes use of you to carry her 
correspondence ! " " If the Queen says that, it is because 
she wants to save the persons who serve her to keep 
up these communications, by saying it is I who did it ! " 
Richelieu mentioned the letter addressed to Mme. de 
Chevreuse which had been found on the prisoner's person, 
and which was to have been handed to M. de la Thibau- 
di^re. La Thibaudi^re, as a matter of fact, having heard 
what was happening, and fearing he might be com- 
promised, had spontaneously reported what had passed 
between La Porte and himself. La Porte, who knew 
nothing of this, told a story. "You are a liar!" cried 
Richelieu. "You tried to give the letter to LaThibaudi^re 
in the courtyard of the Louvre ; he asked you to keep it till 
the next day; and after that you expect me to believe 

i68 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

you ! You must write to the Queen, and tell her she does 
not know what she says when she declares she has no 
communications with foreigners and enemies of the State, 
and that it is of yourself she makes use for her intrigues ! " 
La Porte refused ; he could not, he said, take such liberties 
with the Queen. "Very well," was the Cardinal's reply; 
"you shall go back to the Bastille! " At one o'clock in 
the morning La Porte was taken back to his prison ! 

Meanwhile, Louis XIII had commanded that a search 
should be made at the Val de Grace. The convent was not 
then the magnificent building of the present day. It was 
at a later date that Anne of Austria commissioned Mansard 
to erect the great pile as it now stands. The convent 
of those days, a far more modest edifice, was that the 
Queen had built when she founded the house in 1624. 
Its Abbess, Mother St. Etienne — Louise de Milly, the 
daughter of a family belonging to the Franche-Comte, but 
in the service of the King of Spain, and whose brother was 
governor of the town of Besan9on— was an intelligent and 
strong-minded woman of fifty-six. Respect for canonical 
rights rendered caution indispensable. Louis XIII wrote 
to the Archbishop of Paris that, having ordered the 
Chancellor to proceed to a search in the Val de Grace, 
on account "of certain despatches which were there, and 
which might cause great prejudice to his affairs," he begged 
the prelate to accompany his Minister, induce the Superior 
to furnish all the information she might be requested to 
give him, and that done, send the said Superior into exile 
in some provincial convent. 

The i\.rchbishop and the Chancellor proceeded together 
to the Val de Grace. They found nothing except some 
unimportant letters. The Superior had begun by declaring 
she could not receive the gentlemen, because she was ill. 
A doctor was consulted, and gave it as his opinion that 
she was well enough to answer questions. The Archbishop 
and the Chancellor were conducted to the nun's cell, and 

169 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

cross-examined her. After he had made her take an oa:th 
"on the damnation of her own soul and the truth of the 
Holy Eucharist, which is the most religious thing on earth, 
and the most potent for the human conscience," so runs 
the official report, the Archbishop commanded her to reveal 
everything, "in virtue of her holy obedience, and on pain 
of excommunication." The Superior denied everything. 
The Queen, she said, certainly received visitors in the 
parlour, but she was never present, and so could not know 
who came there; she did not know La Porte; and the 
Queen had never confided any papers to her care. There- 
upon the Archbishop called together the chapter of the 
community, gave it notice that he was deposing the 
Superior from her office, sent her to the Convent of La 
Charite-sur-Loire, and ordered the nuns to proceed forth- 
with to the election of another abbess; all of which was 
done on the spot. 

Mother St. Etienne protested that the trea:tment meted 
out to her was unjust, "and that it would not last long ! " 

The inquiry at the Val de Grace had borne no fruit at 
all. The only thing left to be done was to question Anne 
of Austria. 

The news of all these discoveries had overwhelmed the 
Queen. The impression produced at Court had been 
disastrous for her. At Chantilly, whither she had gone 
by the King's order, everybody avoided her. The King 
and the Cardinal did not see her at all; the courtiers 
passed beneath her windows and never looked up. The 
people about her hardly waited on her as they should. 
She felt herself an object of universal scorn. She fell into 
a state of terror ; twice the physicians had to bleed her ; 
she could not eat and could not sleep. 

The Chancellor, sent by the King, waited upon her; he 
questioned her. Had she really been in communication 
with the Spaniards? She denied it. Then he laid the 
intercepted letter to Mirabel before her. With a sudden 

170 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

gesture she snatched the paper up and tried to hide it 
in the bosom of her gown. La Porte and Monglat both 
assert that the Chancellor did his best to take it back by 
force ! This closed the conversation ! 

On the following morning the Queen sent her secretary, 
Le Gras, to assure the Cardinal she had never employed 
La Porte to carry any letters but those to Mme. de Chev- 
reuse. On August 15 she received Holy Communion, 
and again requested Le Gras to go and tell the Cardinal 
that she swore by the Blessed Sacrament she had not 
had any dealings with foreign Courts. She was beside 
herself ! Tv/o days later her secretary came and told her 
the authorities knew more than she thought. Then she 
sent Le Gras to ask Richelieu to come and speak to her. 

He came; and she acknowledged, in substance, that she 
had written to the Cardinal-Infante in Flanders; but, she 
declared, "it was only on subjects of no importance." 
"There was more than that, Madame ! " was the Cardinal's 
grave reply; but if her Majesty would make a clean breast 
of everything, the King would certainly forgive and forget. 
Desperately agitated, Anne commanded the persons present 
in the room to retire. Yes! she then confessed, she had 
written to her" brother the Infante, and to the Marquis de 
Mirabel ; she had complained, in the letters transmitted to 
Auger by La Porte, of the situation in which she was kept 
in France ; she had warned Mirabel to be careful to counter- 
act the understanding in preparation between the King and 
Lorraine, or the King and England; yes ! M. de la Thibau- 
diere was to have carried one of her letters to Mme. de 
Chevreuse; yes! she had forced Mme. de Chevreuse to 
come and see her in disguise ! And she wept, and talked 
of her remorse, and confessed she had been false to her 
oaths, and acknowledged the sins of which she had been 
guilty. Richelieu was touched; the King, he told her 
once more, would certainly grant her his pardon. As for 
himself, he would do his best to serve her. "Ah, Monseig- 

171 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

neur," cried the Queen, "how full of kindness you must 
be ! " And she would have taken him by the hand, but 
Richelieu, embarrassed, respectfully eluded the honour, 
and took his leave. 

He made his report to the King. But what action could 
they possibly take against the Queen of France, whose 
bestowal of a Dauphin on the nation was so eagerly and 
impatiently awaited? They must e'en bow their heads and 
forgive her I 

The King was determined that the Queen should at all 
events renew her confession and sign it. Anne of Austria 
obeyed. This was on August 17, She wrote the docu- 
ment from dictation. After acknowledging that she had 
sent letters into Flanders and received answers to them, 
she added: "Among other things, I have sometimes 
expressed my discontent with the situation I myself 
occupied, and I have written letters to the Marquis de 
Mirabel, and received letters from him, which were couched 
in terms that must have been displeasing to the King. I 
warned the Marquis de Mirabel that there was talk of an 
understanding with Lorraine, and that he must take his 
measures. I have manifested my anxiety and distress 
about the news that the English were making peace with 
France, instead of remaining at one with Spain. The 
letter that was found on La Porte was to have been given 
to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and the said letter referred 
to a journey which the said Dame de Chevreuse intended 
to take, and nominally without our knowledge." She 
closed her confession by a promise never to offend again. 
Below^ this statement Louis XIII added, with his own hand, 
one of his own, to the effect that, in consideration of this 
confession and of the oath the Queen had taken never 
again to place herself in a similar position, he pardoned 
her. The husband and wife exchanged kisses. As far as 
they were concerned, there was an end of it all. 

But the King meant to take his compensation out of the 

172 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

Queen's accomplices. He gave orders for the cross- 
examinations to begin afresh, and be actively carried on. 
La Porte continued to deny everything, so he was handed 
a letter which Anne of Austria had been forced to write, 
and in which she told him: "I desire you will acknow- 
ledge the truth about everything concerning which you 
may be questioned." Still La Porte refused to confess. 
He would not, he declared, be guilty of such a piece 
of "meanness"; the Queen's letter had been dictated 
to her ! Under fresh pressure from the Chancellor, he 
wrote to Anne of Austria, to ask what she really wished 
him to reveal. Through Mile, de Hautefort, the Queen 
contrived to give him an idea, to some extent, of what had 
happened. La Porte behaved in a most chivalrous way. 
That formidable agent of the Cardinal's justice, Laffemas, 
entered his cell, and, finding all his attempts to break down 
his opposition useless, held out a paper, saying, "Here is 
an order to put you to the question, ordinary and extra- 
ordinary ! " La Porte did not flinch. He was led into the 
torture-chamber; the instruments of torture were laid out 
before him — planks, wedges, cords, and so forth. The 
prisoner's sole reply was that he would only speak if the 
Queen ordered him to do it. "But she has written order- 
ing you to speak! " "That letter was dictated to her! " 
If the Comptroller-General of the Queen's Household, 
M. de la Riviere, came and repeated her order by word 
of mouth, said La Porte, perhaps he might obey him. 
M. de la Riviere came. In his presence the Chancellor 
asked his questions. Then La Porte consented to confess 
the business of the intercepted letter to Mirabel. All the 
rest he denied. They threatened him; but it was all in 
vain. Tired out, his judges left him in the Bastille; he 
was to lie there for nine months, and at last, in 1638, the 
Queen was to be granted her faithful servant's freedom, 
on condition that he w^ent into exile at Saumur. 

But what was to be done with Mme. de Chevreuse? 

173 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Once more the question arose, and, as always, full of 
inextricable difficulties. There was no doubt as to her 
guilt. There were proofs by the score of what she had 
done. Louis XIII began by notifying the Queen that he 
forbade her to have anything to do with the Duchess in 
future. He put his order into writing : "I do not wish the 
Queen to write to Mme. de Chevreuse in future, and prin- 
cipally because this pretext has covered all the letters she 
has written elsewhere." Anne of Austria pledged her 
word. 

Apart from the Queen, this business of the Duchess was 
full of complications. Since the month of April the 
Government had been aware that she was planning to get 
out of France, and take refuge in England. In a 
memorandum laid before the King, Richelieu detailed 
the dangers to the Government this course involved. 
"Mme. de Chevreuse," he said, "is in friendly relations 
with the Due de Lorraine, with the English, with the 
Queen, with the Fargis, and, generally speaking, with all 
the mischief-makers. If she is outside the kingdom, she 
will prevent the Due de Lorraine from coming to any 
arrangement, as much on her own account as because the 
Queen, who favours the Spanish party, will desire it; she 
will give a great impulse to the English to do what she 
wants them to do ; she will be. open to all the impressions 
conveyed by the mischief-makers. Hence my conclusion is 
that she must not be allowed to leave the kingdom." 

But how was it to be prevented? There were two 
methods : the first was to use force ; to this course, which 
must end in failure, Richelieu saw serious objections; the 
other was "the ways of civility"; in other words, to write 
to the Duchess, and make her understand that if her desire 
to go abroad was caused by reasons connected with her 
own necessities — she was known to be heavily in debt — 
the Government was ready to come to her assistance : that, 
if it was only "for the satisfaction of her own mind, the 

174 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

Government had nothing against it, but that she ought to 
consider that she would leave her whole family in per- 
dition." The Cardinal's final conclusion was that it 
would be better to send her money. "So dangerous is 
her spirit," he said, as he closed his statement, "that, once 
outside the kingdom, it may cause one knows not what 
unforeseen "disturbances." Louis XIII approved this 
view. A large sum of money was despatched to Tours. 
Mme. de Chevreuse expressed her thanks, but refused to 
accept the gift; she declared she was in no need of money. 
Finally, after thinking it over, she did accept it, but merely 
as a loan. 

What was to be done next ? The King decided that 
anyhow he would send somebody to Tours to question the 
Duchess. After that he would see. He confided the mission 
to an old servant of the House of Lorraine, an ecclesiastic, 
treasurer of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, the Abbe du 
Dorat, a man of faithful and reliable character. " Madame," 
wrote the Cardinal to the Duchess, on August 15, "I 
have requested M. du Dorat to wait on you for an affair 
that you will consider of some importance. As I desire to 
give you fresh proofs of my affection and my good ofiEices, 
I beseech you will give me proofs of your sincerity, and 
assure yourself that by this conduct you will extricate 
yourself from the business in question without any annoy- 
ance whatsoever, even as you have been extricated, in the 
past, from others which were of not less importance." On 
second thoughts, a certain Abbe de Cinq-Mars was ap- 
pointed to act with du Dorat. The duty imposed on the 
envoys was to induce Mme. de Chevreuse to give them 
all the information they could extract from her as to her 
dealings with foreign Powers. Despatches from the Due 
de Lorraine and from the Spanish Ministers, containing 
certain circumstantial details, had been seized in Burgundy. 
If the Duchess would make a frank confession, she would 
be given a full pardon. 

175 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Du Dorat and Cinq-Mars found Mme. de Chevreuse in 
an extraordinary state of agitation. When the news of 
what had been happening in Paris reached her, the 
Duchess, Hke the Queen, had been quite overwhelmed. 
She was too conscious of tiie gravity of her own fauUs, 
and too well informed, by the fate of Chalais, Boutteville 
and Montmorency, of the fashion in which the King knew 
how to punish, not to dread chastisement of the most 
terrible description. The arrival of the two inquisitors put 
the finishing-touch to her terror. She denied everything 
wholesale. When they pressed her with questions, she 
ended by acknowledging that several times over she had 
intended to go and see the Queen in secret, but that the 
Queen had dissuaded her from carrying out the plan, 
because of the insuperable difficulties attending its execu- 
tion. As regarded the Due de Lorraine, she had no under- 
standing with him, and it had never entered her head to 
prevent him from treating with France. As to the 
despatches intercepted in Burgundy and which were now 
being held over her head, she knew nothing at all about 
them. When du Dorat made his report to Richelieu, he 
declared himself convinced that Mme. de Chevreuse had 
induced the Queen to prevent the alliance between France 
and England, and concluded thus: "Your Eminence will 
permit me, if it so please you, to assure you that this 
lady is the greatest enemy you have, and the one who 
has done you the most displeasure." On August 24 he 
made Mme. de Chevreuse set down in writing, and sign, 
the few items to which she had confessed, and carried the 
document with him to Paris, after having assured the 
Duchess he would keep her informed of the progress of 
events. 

The effect produced in Paris was exceedingly bad. 
Mme. de Chevreuse was made acquainted of this by her 
friends. The King and the Cardinal were both of them 
deeply irritated. La Rochefoucauld sent Craft to warn the 

176 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

Duchess. She lost her head. Du Dorat wrote her not to 
fret herself, reiterating his assurance that all the cross- 
questioning had only been a test of her frankness; that 
everything would come right; that his Majesty was 
resolved to pardon her, whatever she had done. The 
Duchess, beside herself with terror, watched ainxiously for 
his letters. She besought the Queen and her friends in 
Paris to give her timely warning of any decision to take 
strong measures against her. It was arranged with Mile, 
de Hautefort that within the next week she was to send 
Mme. de Chevreuse a Book of Hours. If the binding was 
green, it would mean that all wa;s going well, but if it was 
red, the Duchess was lost; she must think of nothing but 
her own safety. Mme. de Chevreuse watched on. 

Then what happened ? Du Dorat's letters ceased. Later 
on she was to know that he had fallen ill. Next, at Tours, 
on Saturday, September 5, at eleven o'clock in the day, 
the Duchess received two packets : the Book of Hours — 
in a red binding ! The fatal colour ! — and a letter from 
Anne of Austria : " Her Majesty sent her word that as 
soon as she received it" (this letter) "she must escape, 
somehow or other ; if she did not, she was lost, and would 
certainly be arrested on the Sunday morning ! " 

Mme. de Chevreuse was distracted. For two hours she 
lay prostrate. Towards one o'clock she called for her 
coach, and went to the King's Lieutenant-General at 
Tours, M. Georges Catinat. She told him she was 
exceedingly anxious, that she had no news of du Dorat, 
and that it was a very serious matter. The Lieutenant- 
General, standing leaning against the window, told her 
several times over that she need not be so much alarmed; 
that something must have happened to prevent du Dorat 
from writing ; that he was sure to send her a letter by the 
next post. The Duchess, who had been walking up and 
down in a fever, suddenly moved towards the door, saying 
she was going back to Couzi^res, and would first go and bid 

N 177 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

the Archbishop farewell. Her state of agitation surprised 
Catinat. 

At the archiepiscopal palace, Monseigneur d'Eschaux 
had been ill in bed for five or six days. Mme. de Chev- 
reuse was admitted to his chamber, and sat down on the 
edge of his bed. To him she told all she had in her heart. 
There was no letter from du Dorat : his silence had filled 
her with deadly fear, and this fear had been transformed 
into certainty that very morning by the Queen's missive. 
She held out the letter — a very long one — and only read 
him one passage, that concerning her present danger. 
Now she must fly ; she must get out of France ! The 
Archbishop, greatly surprised, asked her if she had ever 
thought of flight before? No! she replied. And whither 
did she intend to go ? To Spain ! The Archbishop was 
at a loss to know what he should say. The Duchess 
reminded him that he had a nephew, the Vicomte 
d'Eschaux, who lived on his property at Eschaux, near 
the Spanish frontier, in the Basque country, some six or 
seven leagues from Bayonne. Let the prelate give her a 
letter of recommendation to his kinsman ! After some 
hesitation, the Archbishop complied. He even went so far 
as to make out the itinerary of the journey to the Pyrenees. 
The Duchess asked for a pen ; she wrote three or four 
letters, and then tore them up. The Archbishop began to 
make more inquiries : And who was she taking with her ? 
Only one manservant, Hilaire. Indeed, she meant to put 
on male attire herself. The Archbishop pointed out that 
one manservant was really not enough ; the Duchess replied 
that she would take Renault as well. Towards four o'clock 
in the afternoon, M. Catinat put in an appearance. Alarmed 
by the state of agitation in which the Duchess had been 
when she left him, he had gone to inquir,e for her at the 
Hotel de la Masseti^re, and, not finding her there, had 
come on to the palace. Mme. de Chevreuse bade farewell 
to the Archbishop and to the Lieutenant-General, returned 

178 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

to her town house, took several packages and a sum of 
money, and started for Couzi^res, attended by her equerry 
and a couple of waiting-women. She was deadly pale, 
absorbed in her own thoughts, sorely troubled; now in a 
sort of dream, now shedding tears. 

By seven o'clock she had reached Couzieres. Supper 
was served — meat of some kind. She scarcely touched it. 
Then she went to her own chamber, and, calling her women 
together, told them she had received reliable warning that 
she was to be arrested, and that she was about to depart. 
She did not tell them where she meant to go, because she 
was sure to be sought for at Couzieres ; and the King's 
emissaries, finding her gone, would persecute them to find 
out whither she had betaken herself. If she could only 
get two and a half days' start she would be out of danger. 
She desired her waiting-woman, Anne, to order the comp- 
troller of her household, whom she had left at Tours, to 
keep her house there going as if she was still in it, and 
to tell everybody that she was ill and not receiving any 
visitors. She wrote a letter to M. Catinat, and confided it 
also to her waiting-woman : in it she confessed to the 
Lieutenant-General that she was leaving France, and 
begged him to look after her affairs for her. Secrecy was 
enjoined on all ; nothing was to be said even to the other 
members of the household, except that their mistress was 
ill; then everybody was dismissed, except Anne. The two 
menservants, Hilaire and Renault, had received their orders 
to be in the road close to a certain gate into the park, at 
nine o'clock, with three horses, one of which was the 
Duchess's own ambling hackney, "a mare, all white, 
splashed with black, like a magpie." 

She dressed herself in man's attire : a black coat, jerkin 
and breeches, and high boots. To conceal her features, she 
dyed her face with a mixture of soot and brickdust, which 
made her look like a gipsy; on her head she put a fair 
wig, which she fastened on with a strip of black silk bound 

179 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

round her forehead — meaning to say she had been wounded 
in the head in a duel ; she was quite unrecognizable. When 
she was ready, she betook herself to the park gate, where 
Hilaire and Renault were waiting for her : "She had neither 
linen, nor clothes, nor packages, nor bags " ; nothing but 
a little enamel watch, and some rouleaux of gold in her 
pocket. She gave her final orders to her waiting-woman, 
mounted her horse, and passed out of sight. 

All that night she travelled, all the next day (Sunday, 
the 6th). That evening, worn out with fatigue, she reached 
the little market town of Couhe, some eight leagues beyond 
Poitiers : she had ridden thirty leagues ! At dawn next 
morning she was off again, and by eight o'clock she was 
at Ruffec. She could not go another step ! At the hostelry 
of the Chene Vert she asked for a room, three napkins, and 
a fire ; she took off her jerkin, threw herself on the bed, 
and slept for two hours. At ten o'clock Hilaire and 
Renault came to tell her she must dine. When the meal 
was over, she remounted her horse. The inn servants stood 
around, watching the handsome young gentleman ; one of 
the maids remarked that he seemed hardly able to sit in 
his saddle, into which, helped by a stableman, he had 
climbed with considerable difficulty. Mme. de Chevreuse 
answered that she was "extremely weary and ill "; she was 
going to seek repose in a friend's house; she gave the 
servants a crown, and they judged her to be a "person of 
condition." The little party departed once more on its 
travels. 

But the Duchess had come to the end of her strength ; 
there could be no doubt about it ! Thereupon she recol- 
lected that she was not very far from Verteuil, the home 
of M. de la Rochefoucauld and his son, M. de Marsillac. 
Why not send and ask M. de Marsillac to len4 her a coach ? 
She would write that young gentleman an anonymous note, 
which Hilaire should carry to him, and in which she would 
tell him a tale. Her servant had his inkhorn on him. So 

i8o 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

she wrote : "Sir, I am a French gentleman, who asks you 
to do him a service to save his Hberty and perhaps his 
life. I have had the misfortune to fight a duel, and I have 
killed a well-known nobleman. This drives me to leave 
France, and that quickly, because I am being searched for. 
I believe you to be sufficiently generous to serve me with- 
out knowing me; I want a coach, and a few lackeys to 
attend me." Then it struck her that M. de Marsillac was 
not likely to act on so vague a request. She told Hilaire 
what he had better say, and gave him another letter. He 
rode off, on the Duchess's own hackney. 

He reached Verteuil, and was ushered into M. de Mar- 
sillac's chamber, where he was still in bed. He tendered 
him the note the Duchess had given him ; he explained the 
position : the Duchess was close by ; she was on her way 
to Saintes, in a great hurry about some urgent business ; 
she had not the time to stop now, but on her way back she 
would visit Mme. de la Rochefoucauld; she begged M. de 
Marsillac would be good enough to lend her a coach and 
four saddle-horses. 

Marsillac was living alone at the chateau with his mother 
and his wife. He hastened to do as he was asked. What ! he 
cried, Mme. de Chevreuse was in the woods close by ? But 
he would go to her himself, and at once 1 He would be 
pleased to do nothing of the sort, protested Hilaire. The 
Duchess would not see him on any account. Marsillac did 
not press it. He called his own bodyservant, Thuillin, had 
four horses harnessed to a coach driven by a coachman of 
the name of Ardouin, ordered four more to be saddled, and 
desired the two servants to follow Hilaire and carry out 
whatever orders they were given. Hilaire helped them to 
harness the horses ; and when he departed he left the 
Duchess's hackney, which was broken down with fatigue, 
in the stables at Verteuil. 

Some five hundred paces from Ruffec they found Mme. 
de Chevreuse. She asked Thuillin "if there was not any 

i8i 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

place in the neighbourhood where she might go and rest 
for a few hours ? " Yes, replied the man, only two leagues 
off there was another house belonging to M. de la Roche- 
foucauld, called La Terne. Mme. de Chevreuse got into 
the coach and lay down. Very soon they reached La 
Terne. The man who took care of the house — Potet was 
his name — made ready a room and a bed, on which Mme. 
de Chevreuse stretched herself out, without taking off her 
clothes. He inquired whether she would not have some- 
thing to eat. She asked for some fresh eggs. Then she 
desired Renault to give her the itinerary the Archbishop 
had made out for her; it was not to be found. She ques- 
tioned Potet and Thuillin as to the best road to take so as 
to get to Eschaux, on the Spanish frontier. Thuillin said 
that Potet knew the way, and would be too happy to con- 
duct her. Potet, who had been in the service of the Due 
de Luynes, had recognized the Duchess. Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, too, kept telling him she had certainly seen him 
somewhere; Potet was only too glad to put himself at her 
disposal. He pointed out that they must go either by 
Cahuzac or by Tonneins; for the first stage, they might go 
as far as Condour, near Marthon, and sleep there in the 
house of a certain Dulorier, who was an acquaintance of 
M. de la Rochefoucauld's; at Cahuzac they would find a 
lodging in the house of one of M. de la Rochefoucauld's 
men of business, Malbati by name. 

When night fell, Mme. de Chevreuse got into the 
coach once more. Potet, Hilaire, Thuillin and Renault 
rode after it. Towards three o'clock in the morning they 
were at Condour, and the following evening they reached 
Saint-Vincent de Connezac. Mme. de Chevreuse was a 
little rested; and she could not keep M. de Marsillac's 
coach for ever. At Saint- Vincent she bought a tolerable 
mare for eight pistoles, and the next morning, when she 
had reached a spot about two leagues from Mussidan, she 
told Ardouin he might drive the coach back to Verteuil. 

182 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

As a precaution, she kept Thuillin with her. In the course 
of the night between Wednesday the 9th and Thursday 
the loth of September she reached Cahuzac. 

Potet and ThuilHn went and knocked at the door of the 
attorney, M. Jean-Paul, otherwise called Malbati. It was 
opened by his wife; her husband was out. Potet and 
Thuillin made themselves known; they had with them, 
they told the good lady, a gentleman of quality, and friend 
of M. de Marsillac's, who had been fighting a duel, and 
whom M. de Marsillac commended to her husband as 
though he had been his own self. They were admitted. 
As they were all sitting down to table, Malbati himself 
appeared. He was a good-looking man of about sixty, 
with a straightforward and friendly countenance. He gave 
his five visitors a most cordial reception. He made a very 
favourable impression on Mme. de Chevreuse. During the 
repast, she told him she wanted to go and take the waters, 
"to cure a wound received in a recent duel, which still 
caused a great deal of pain." Malbati replied that the only 
waters he knew of for that kind of trouble were those of 
Ax. No, said the Duchess, those were not the waters she 
desired to take ; she wanted to go to Bagn^res : did he not 
know the way there ? Ah ! quoth the attorney, if the 
traveller had only come five or six days later, when the 
vintage would have been over, he would gladly have ridden 
with him as far as Notre-Dame de Garaison, close to 
Bagn^res, whither he himself was bound to go, to accom- 
plish a vow. The Duchess asked him if he could not come 
at once. No ! he said, that was quite impossible. But she 
pressed him so hard that he ended by giving in. Every- 
body went to bed, Malbati giving up his own room to the 
young gentleman, as he believed him to be. 

The next morning, when the whole household was up and 
about, Mme. de Chevreuse asked her host if he had not a suit 
of clothes he could sell her. Yes, he replied, he had a suit 
that M. de Marsillac had given him two years previously, 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

and which he had never put on. Though it would be 
rather large, it might do. Reassured at finding herself 
with Malbati, a sensible man of experience and respect- 
ability, the Duchess requested Thuillin to go back to M. de 
Marsillac, taking two of the saddle-horses with him, and 
to assure him that she would "everlastingly feel the obliga- 
tions under which she was to him." She directed Renault 
and Hilaire to stay on at Cahuzac until they had fresh 
orders from her, and then she started forth once more, 
accompanied by Potet and Malbati. 

The grace and charm and delicate features of the young 
traveller had not passed unnoticed by Malbati. He drew 
Potet aside : Who was this young gentleman ? he inquired. 
Potet made a gesture indicating his own uncertainty. He 
would hear that later. Mme. de Chevreuse, guessing the 
purport of the conversation, broke in upon it by inquiring 
about the noble families living in the part of the country 
through which they were travelling. 

That evening they slept at an inn about five leagues 
from Douzains. Malbati was thoroughly puzzled. The 
evident exhaustion of the young man, when he had dis- 
mounted at the end of this last stage, "and the beauty of 
the said young gentlema:n," so the good man was to assert 
at a later date, "made me somewhat suspect that this 
was a lady in disguise ; which led me to resolve I would 
discover the truth the next day, by frequent questions, 
and by the entreaties I would make that I might be told 
it." 

That next day, Friday, the nth, the three horsemen 
crossed the Garonne at Agen, and slept at Gondrin. Mal- 
bati cross-questioned the Duchess. At last he said, in the 
most determined fashion, "Who are you ? " The Duchess 
gave evasive replies, but he pressed her so hard that she 
finally confessed she was the Due d'Enghien, son of the 
Prince de Conde; and then, to change the conversation, 
she began to talk about the Cid, poured forth praises of 
Corneille, and recited whole passages out of the play. 

184 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

On the morrow, Saturday, the 12th, the halt for the night 
was at Montastruc. Malbati returned to the charge. 
"How is it," he inquired, "that a great Prince Hke you 
travels as you are travelling, alone, in such distant parts 
as these ? " Mme. de Chevreuse said something about 
the duel she had been fighting, and began to spout poetry 
again. 

On the Sunday, September 13, they stopped at Ber- 
nadets. It was a wretched lodging, and Mme. de Chev- 
reuse preferred sleeping on some straw in a barn. The 
next morning she was offered, for her breakfast, a quarter 
of a goose, boiled in a very dirty earthenware pot. She 
refused to eat anything at all. A peasant woman, who had 
seen her as she slept, and been struck by her appearance, 
brought her four fresh eggs on a pewter dish, covered with 
a clean napkin. "That's the prettiest boy| I ever saw in 
my life ! " quoth she. Mme. de Chevreuse smiled at her, 
and accepted her eggs. 

They had five leagues more to ride before reaching 
Bagn^res. Touched by Malbati 's devotion, the Duchess 
told him she was not the Due d'Enghien, but another 
person, whose name she would reveal to him when they 
reached the end of their journey the next day. Potet con- 
fided to the attorney that though he might admire their 
comrade's face now, "it was nothing to what it was 
when the gentleman had not rubbed tile-dust and soot all 
over it." 

At two o'clock in the morning the three horsemen rode 
into Bagn^res, and dismounted at a hostelry close to the 
baths. Mme. de Chevreuse asked the innkeeper which 
waters were the best, those of Bagn^res or those of Bareges. 
He replied that it would depend on the sort of illness 
the patient had. The Duchess said she thought she had 
better consult a physician. She knew one at Tarbes, a 
man of high reputation ; she would go and see him the 
very next day. The innkeeper pointed out that the road 
to Tarbes was long and difficult to travel. 

185 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

On the morning of Monday the 14th, Mme. de Chevreuse 
went over to the baths. There were a great many people 
there, and one of them, a gentleman, recognized her, and, 
with an air of great surprise, respectfully approached her. 
The Duchess at once begged him to conceal his former 
acquaintance with her, and asked him to do her the kind- 
ness of procuring her a guide to take her into Spain. The 
arrangements were made : it was settled that the guide was 
to meet her in the mountains at an appointed spot. Then 
she returned to her inn. 

Malbati had promised to accompany the young gentle- 
man as far as Bagneres; he had never said he would go 
on from there to Tarbes. He was very ill-pleased at this 
fresh development of the Duchess's plans, and tried to 
dissuade her from attempting the journey, saying the 
country was full of thieves, and the roa:ds most unsafe. 
Mme. de Chevreuse persuaded him to come with her. 

Once more they got into their saddles, led by a single 
guide. The attorney of Cahuzac wore a gloomy look; the 
Duchess told him she saw clearly how vexed he was; that 
he was very possibly thinking of forsaking her ; but he had 
served her so faithfully thus far that she could not doubt 
he would render her the final service of accompanying her 
this once more. They travelled across the mountains all 
that day and the next night. Towards three o'clock in the 
morning they reached one of the little huts that serve as 
shelter for the shepherds of that country. Mme. de Chev- 
reuse had deceived Malbati. She was not taking him to 
Tarbes, but to the frontier. While the horses were being 
fed, the travellers stretched themselves out upon the hay 
and slept. 

At dawn Mme. de Chevreuse rose to her feet and led 
Malbati aside. She had promised, she said, , to tell him 
who she really was, and now the hour had come : she was 
not the Due d'Enghien ; she was a woman, and the Duchesse 
de Chevreuse. She was deeply grateful to him for the 

186 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

service he had just done her. She was going to Spain. 
She was leaving France against her will, because if she 
did not, ruin would overtake her. And she added, so that 
Malbati might repeat her assertion, that she was on her 
way to England, and had not been able to discover any 
other means than this of getting there. She had escaped 
from Tours because she knew she was to be arrested. Her 
conscience was clear : she had never done, and would never 
do, anything against the King or the Cardinal ; she would 
write to them to that effect; she would rather "throw her- 
self into the fire than be shut up in a prison." She trusted 
Malbati would report all she had said : let him say she was 
only going to stay a few days in Spain ; that she did not 
intend to see either the King or the Queen ; that she meant 
to go straight to a seaport, whence the King of England 
was to have her fetched on one of his ships of war. She 
was expecting a: guide from Bagn^res to meet her at the 
spot they had now reached. Now they must part; she 
would be able to spare Malbati and Potet, and they might 
return to their own homes. 

Malbati was amazed. He listened in the deepest 
astonishment. His heart was filled with mingled feelings 
of emotion, regret and pity combined. What could she be 
thinking of, he asked at last, gently, to dream of crossing 
the mountains alone, and in such troublous times, with a 
man of whom she knew nothing at all ? She would come 
to destruction, she would fall among "a thousand thieves ! " 
Mme. de Chevreuse replied that she was quite confident 
about her journey, which would not cost her more than two 
or three hundred pistoles: she would halt at the hospice, 
four leagues away, where there were Spanish priests who 
would take care of her ; she would then write to the Viceroy 
of Saragossa to send her a coach to Barbastro. There 
was no danger at all. She would send back news by the 
guide. 

Malbati was sorely troubled. He had not spent so many 

rS7 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

long hours in the company of the beautiful woman whose 
life he had been sharing for some days without experienc- 
ing a dim sense of her charm, and an inner feeling that 
was alike mysterious and tender. But just at this moment 
a Spanish peasant — the promised guide — made his appear- 
ance, climbing up the path. Mme. de Chevreuse asked 
Malbati to take charge of a letter for the Archbishop of 
Tours, and after a certain amount of hesitation the attorney 
consented. If you have any fears, said the Duchess, burn 
it, but "if he would take her word, she swore to him, on 
the faith of an honourable woman, that it contained nothing 
against the King's service." She also asked him to return 
M. de Marsillac's horse to him, and to thank him for the 
service he had done her: "She would never forget the 
obligations and the courtesies she had received from him." 
To indemnify Malbati for his outlay, she offered him a 
rouleau of pistoles. He would not accept it. But she 
succeeded in making him take a sum to cover the expenses 
of his return journey — seven pistoles. 

The moment of parting had come. Malbati was shaking 
with agitation. With an impulsive gesture, the Duchess 
threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. The guide 
was in a hurry to start. Mme. de Chevreuse made Potet 
give her the map and the inkhorn, reminded him as to the 
road he would have to follow on his return, and then, 
having bestowed a final embrace upon Malbati, took hold 
of her horse's bridle, and walked briskly up the mountain 
path. . . . 

Malbati, lost in thought, took his way down the moun- 
tain-side. The next day he made his Communion at 
Notre-Dame de Garaison ; then he went home to Cahuzac, 
and despatched Hilaire and Renault to perform the com- 
missions with which the Duchess had entrusted him, 
amongst them the letter to the Archbishop, which he sent 
to M. de Marsillac; this gentleman had it carried to Tours 
by a lackey in the service of M. d'Estissac. Meanwhile, 

1 88 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

Mme. de Chevreuse had succeeded without any difficulty 
whatever in crossing the frontier and reaching Spanish 
territory. 

She had fled from Couzieres on the evening of Saturday, 
September 6. On Monday, the 8th, at Tours, M. Catinat 
received the letter the Duchess had desired her waiting- 
woman to send him. The Lieutenant-General asked the 
lackey who brought it "where his mistress was?" "iVt 
Couzieres," he replied, knowing no better. Catinat at once 
sent a messenger to Couzieres, who returned with the news, 
which he had already suspected, that the Duchess had fled. 
He instantly wrote three despatches, one to the Due de 
Chevreuse, one to du Dorat, and the third to his own 
brother, a Councillor of the Parliament of Paris, telling 
all three of his correspondents what had just happened, 
and requesting them to inform the Government. 

On the receipt of this letter, M. de Chevreuse, greatly 
alarmed, fetched the Abbe du Dorat and the steward of 
his own household, M. de Boispille, and waited on Louis 
XIII, who was at Conflans. There had been no intention 
on his part of placing Mme. de Chevreuse under arrest. 
Anne of Austria and Mile, de Hautefort, deceived by flying 
rumours, had acted too precipitately. 

Both the King and Richelieu were exceedingly annoyed. 
They requested Boispille to proceed at once to Tours, to 
find out exactly what had happened, and to report to them. 
Finally, on Saturday, the 12th, Richelieu, after thinking 
the matter over, ordered Boispille, in the King's name, to 
hurry after the Duchess, catch her up, and assure her that 
if she would come back at once, her flight would be 
overlooked; she might even return to Dampierre. 

On the Sunday, Boispille started on his journey. At 
Tours he saw the Archbishop and the Lieutenant-General. 
From the Archbishop he learnt the road the Duchess was 
to take, as he believed, to get to Eschaux. Boispille went 
on his way. On Sunday, the 6th, the prelate had received 

189 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

letters from Paris which assured him Mme. de Chevreuse 
had no reason to be so alarmed. He had at once despatched 
two men, Dolce and Mazuel, to join her, reassure her, and 
induce her to turn back. These two men had not returned. 
Boispille found them at Bordeaux. It was then arranged 
that Dolce should go to Eschaux, that Mazuel should 
search the banks of the Garonne, and that Boispille should 
endeavour to collect information on the spot. When, after 
a few days, the three men met again, none of them had 
found out anything. There was no news of Mme. de 
Chevreuse at Eschaux. Mazuel turned back towards 
Tours, going by Blaye, Saintes and Saint-Maixent, look- 
ing about in case the Duchess should be lying ill anywhere 
along the road. Boispille remained at Bordeaux till the 
22nd. It was then over a fortnight since Mme. de Chev- 
reuse had started. He went back to Tours, and there heard 
that the Duchess had ridden by Ruffec and Verteuil, where 
she had borrowed M. de Marsillac's coach. He hurried 
to Verteuil, and when he put his horse into the stable there, 
he recognized the Duchess's hackney. Marsillac assured 
him he did not know what had become of the lady; he 
told him all that had happened as far as he himself was 
concerned; beyond that, he knew nothing. Boispille 
brought the hackney back to Tours. 

Then he went to see the Archbishop again. That prelate, 
meanwhile, had received the letter Mme. de Chevreuse had 
written him from the Spanish frontier, and confided to 
Malbati. "Ah," said he, "you have been working hard 
to try and get news, and I, who have never set my foot 
outside this place, have news to give you ! " He read 
the letter aloud. Boispille thought the Duchess was at 
Eschaux. He took post-horses, and went there as fast 
as he could. He arrived on Sunday, October 1 1,; but Mme. 
de Chevreuse had not been there as yet. He returned 
to Tours, and thence to Paris. His undertaking had 
failed. 

190 



THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN 

Meanwhile, Louis XIII and Richelieu had received 
information from other quarters. 

When Marsillac's servants and his coach returned to 
Verteuil, he learnt, to his great astonishment, that instead 
of going to Saintes, as she had declared she intended 
doing, Mme. de Chevreuse had gone in a quite different 
direction. And the strange disguise she wore, and which 
his servants described to him, caused him still greater 
perplexity. Suspecting some unpleasant business at the 
bottom of it all, he at once wrote and desired his 
secretary, who happened to be in Paris, to report the 
whole matter to his father. And at the same time Mme. 
de la Rochefoucauld, whose mind was as uneasy as her 
son's, wrote to her husband, giving him every detail. "If 
it is all of no consequence," wrote Marsillac, " I should be 
very glad if no fuss were made about it." M. de la Roche- 
foucauld, as soon as he received the two letters, went to 
see the Chancellor, and then hurried down to Rueil to 
speak to Richelieu. He was very much alarmed, and 
accused his son of carelessness. Five or six days after 
that, Potet returned to Verteuil with the horses, and told 
Marsillac that Mme. de Chevreuse had crossed over into 
Spain. Marsillac instantly sent the news to his father, 
who carried it to Richelieu. He was received in the most 
frigid fashion. "This business places me in such a 
difficulty," he wrote angrily to his brother, M. de Lian- 
court, "that I cannot write to you about anything else. It 
is not that my son can be excused, either as regards myself 
or other persons, for he has shown me very little considera- 
tion ; I pray God he may be wiser in future." 

But Mme. de Chevreuse was safe in Spain. There was 
no use in trying to stop her. At all events, Louis XIII 
and Richelieu would now find out exactly what had hap- 
pened, and if there had been accomplices, they should be 
chastised. An inquiry was opened, and placed in the 
hands of a magistrate of the Parliament of Metz, President 

191 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Vignier. He departed to Tours, cross-examined the Arch 
bishop, the Lieutenant-General, the servants at Couzieres ; 
he went on to Verteuil, saw Marsillac and the servants 
there; he questioned the owners of the taverns and inns 
where Mme. de Chevreuse had rested, and finally he 
questioned Malbati himself. Then he sent in his report. 
Thanks to this inquiry and report, we know all the details 
of the flight. It seemed far from easy, all things con- 
sidered, to lay the blame anywhere, since the King, at the 
very beginning of the business, had declared himself ready 
to forgive the chief offender. 

Public rumour accused Marsillac : he, so it was said, 
had carried off Mme. de Chevreuse, had helped her out of 
the kingdom, had even brought her to La Terne, and there 
"held revels" with her. He was ordered to Paris to give 
an explanation of his conduct. His friends, M. de la 
Meilleraie and M. de Chavigny, were defending and 
excusing him, on the score of his having been the lover 
of Mme. de Chevreuse, which was quite untrue. Riche- 
lieu commanded him to tell him the whole truth. Marsillac 
took a high tone, and gave sharp replies. Richelieu 
grew angry. When the young man answered somewhat 
haughtily, the Cardinal said: "Very good. Then you 
must go to the Bastille." The next day Marsillac was in 
prison. His friends pleaded his cause, and after a week 
had gone by, Meilleraie managed to obtain his release. 
He was to be the only victim of the flight of the Duchess, 
and his punishment was of the lightest kind. 



192 



CHAPTER VII 

IN ENGLAND : MADAME DE CHEVREUSE AND RICHELIEU 

Mme. de Chevreuse in Madrid — In London — Her negotiations with 
Richelieu : she slips through his fingers — M. de Chevreuse is sent to 
London : Mme. de Chevreuse flees into Flanders — Death of 
Richelieu — 1638-42. 

From the Hospice, where the monks had received her with 
great kindness, Mme. de Chevreuse had pursued her 
journey into Spain. From Sant Esteban, the first fortified 
town she reached, she wrote a letter to Cardinal de 
Richelieu. In it she set forth the reasons of her con- 
duct : since the Chateauneuf business, she asserted, she 
had striven to live in peace, and to avoid anything likely 
to cause displeasure : she had been suddenly warned that 
she was about to be arrested, to answer for things "of 
which she had never even thought, and to be told that the 
truth of them was in her accusers' hands. This had made 
her imagine her destruction was a settled thing." So she 
had departed ! She also wrote to the Archbishop of Tours, 
telling him she had reached Spanish territory, requesting 
him to do certain things for various people, and adding 
that she had not yet decided what her next step should be. 

From Sant Esteban, she went to Saragossa. Thence 
she sent more letters into France. Forgetful of her 
promise to Malbati, she resolved to go to Madrid. From 
that city she sent news of herself to Boispille. But a 
courier from France brought her a curt message. "We 
send no answers into Spain." The Government had issued 
its orders. 

Mme. de Chevreuse solicited an audience with the King 
o 193 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

of Spain. She was kindly received : the fact that she was 
the friend of Anne of Austria was not forgotten. PhiHp 
IV, the sovereign of the Spanish kingdom, was then a 
man of thirty-five. "Splendid presents were given to 
Mme. de Chevreiise," writes Mme. de Motteville, and she 
adds: "The King of Spain appeared to have some little 
tenderness for her, and although she told me, in the days 
of the Regency, that the prince had never said a soft word 
to her except once, and then only as he passed by, report 
tells quite another story." Tliere was a persistent belief, 
indeed, that the King of Spain had been on the most 
intimate terms with Mme. de Chevreuse. Louis XIII was 
pleased to affirm the fact to Anne of Austria, before her 
assembled Court, after a decidedly coarse fashion. "The 
Queen," writes the English Ambassador, Digby, to 
Montague, on May 19, 1638', "told me, with great emotion, 
that the King had given her a very pleasant piece of news, 
to wit, that the King of Spain had certainly ' couche avec 
Mme. de Chevreuse! ' '' He used these very words in a 
loud voice." 

But for many reasons it was not possible for Mme. de 
Chevreuse to remain at Madrid. Her position there was 
of the most precarious kind. She had made an attempt to 
obtain a certain rank at Court by getting herself appointed 
Avhat was called posada en palacio : her application had 
been refused. This had deeply offended her. Lost in that 
stiff serious society, in which her lively French ways were 
very ill received, she soon felt it would be wiser to leave 
the country and make up her mind to go to London. The 
King of Spain courteously provided her with iall the 
necessary facilities. He even charged one of his gentle- 
men, Don Domingo di Gonsalvo, to conduct her to 
Fontarabia, and attend her to England. Sp after a stay 
of a few months on Spanish soil, the Duchess took ship, 
and on Sunday, April 25, 1638, she disembarked at 
Portsmouth. Her fate was to undergo a change, indeed ! 

194 



IN ENGLAND 

She was joyfully received. Lord Goring and Lord 
Montague, who had been sent to meet her by Charles I, 
welcomed her when she landed : she settled for a time 
at Greenwich. Friends crowded about her. The English 
Court had not forgotten the merry days of 1625, and 
hailed with delight the return of the fair lady who, in 
spite of her eight-and-thirty years, was still the fascinating 
Duchess it had then admired. 

Mme. de Chevreuse recovered her confidence. Now that 
she was no longer in an enemy's country, the powers in 
Paris would perhaps agree to enter into relations with 
her. And besides, she was short of money, she must 
really look into her affairs, which had been sorely 
neglected. 

The pregnancy of Anne of Austria had been formally 
announced in February 1638, and she lost no time about 
writing to the Queen to offer her congratulations, and 
thus reopen intercourse with her. It was the first time 
she had communicated with her since she had left 
Couzieres. "The remembrance," she wrote, "which I 
cannot doubt your Majesty has of what I owe you, and 
that I have of what I should pay you, will persuade your 
Majesty, without a word from me, of the pain it has been 
to me to remove myself so far away from you, so as to 
escape penalties which I feared the unjust suspicions 
stirred up against me might cause me to suffer." Neces- 
sity alone had forced her over the Spanish border, where 
the respect felt for her Majesty had caused her to be 
received and treated far better than she deserved. "That 
I bear you led me to hold my peace till I was in this 
kingdom (England), which, being in a good understand- 
ing with France, gives me no reason to apprehend that 
it will cause you displeasure to receive letters coming 
thence." 

And she congratulates the Queen on her condition, and 
beseeches her to help her : "May your Majesty's protection 

195 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

preserve me from the misfortune that the anger of the 
King and the bad graces of Monseigneur the Cardinal 
would bring on me ! " 

Anne of Austria, who had learnt prudence, showed the 
letter to Louis XIII. As it happened, Mme. de Chevreuse 
had done just what the King most desired when she 
wrote it. Now that she was out of Spain, so Richelieu 
opined, it was as well to reopen relations with her, and 
bring her to reason. The Queen should make a begin- 
ning, and initiate a corespondence which might ultimately 
assume wider proportions. The sovereign's interesting 
condition supplied the necessary opening. Anne of 
Austria had better announce it to her friend herself : a 
rough draft of her letter was supplied her, and that rough 
draft we now possess. Anne of Austria was to make no 
reference to the terrors with which she herself had inspired 
the Duchess, and which had really been at the bottom of 
her sudden flight : she was to reassure her, saying, "There 
is no intention here of doing you any harm " ; she was 
to make a joking reference to the hurried journey across 
France, the details of which, revealed by the inquiry con- 
ducted by President Vignier, had so entertained the Court 
that certain facetious persons had embellished the tale, 
which did indeed lend itself to the process, with all sorts 
of merry adventures, the echoes of which have been trans- 
mitted to us by Tallemant des Reaux. "I have not been 
able to help laughing over certain adventures with which I 
know you have met." She was to advise the Duchess 
to repair the mischief done in the past by adopting, during 
her stay in England, an attitude the very opposite of that 
she had hitherto assumed with regard to France : " I 
entreat you, for the love of your own self, and of me, 
to do nothing in the country in which you are, likely to 
rouse any just displeasure against you outside it, and I 
confess to you that while I have a passionate desire for 
peace, I should be in despair if England, either during the 

196 



IN ENGLAND 

time you are there, or after you have left it, should do 
anything against France." The request was as definite 
as possible. But on consideration, some doubt was felt, 
and the letter was not sent. 

Thus Madame de Chevreuse's letter to the Queen 
arrived in the nick of time. In response to it, Richelieu 
caused the Duchess to be informed by a third person, but 
on his own authority, that her attempt to correspond with 
Anne of Austria had not been ill received, and that she 
might write again. Mme. de Chevreuse at once wrote to 
the Cardinal himself. " Having learnt," she said, on 
June I, "that which I easily believe, seeing how great 
•is my desire to do so, that it will be agreeable to you 
to receive thTs letter, I write it to you with much content- 
ment. I hope the misfortune which has constrained me 
to leave France has grown weary of having pursued me 
for so long, and that the suspicions which have filled me 
with dread may have partly justified that fear, of which I 
should be well pleased to be cured, by the knowledge 
that my enemies are not more powerful than my own 
innocence. I thought myself obliged to remove myself 
far away, so as to gain the only thing needful for my 
justification, that is to say, time. The assurances I have 
received of your kindness towards me, since my arrival 
here, make me hope for the success on which I have set 
my desires." She begged Charles I and Henrietta-Maria 
to write and urgently plead her cause both with Louis XHI 
and with Richelieu. And at her request the King of 
England went so far as to desire his Ambassador in Paris 
to intercede in her favour, and beg an immediate per- 
mission for her return to France. 

But this time Richelieu thought things were going too 
fast. In a carefully prepared memorandum, the Cardinal 
set forth, for the King's information, the reasons which 
made it necessary to take indispensable precautions before 
Mme. de Chevreuse was given leave to come back : " If 

197 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

the English i\mbassador mentions Mme. de Chevreuse," 
he wrote, "the King will say that when she acknowledges 
her faults, he will be ready to grant her his pardon." 
There were to be conditions, and these were still more 
clearly set forth by Chavigny, the Secretary of State, to 
M. de Belli^vre, the French King's Ambassador in 
London : "We impatiently await news of what may have 
passed between you and Mme. de Chevreuse, and whether, 
in your judgment, she intends to render some useful 
service in the place where she is, so as to reconcile herself 
with France." The Government meant Mme. de 
Chevreuse to pay for her pardon, and to give pledges 
beforehand. These conditions were exceedingly distaste- 
ful to her. Counselled by Montague, she was to fool 
the Cardinal, and enter on a perfidious struggle with him, 
in the course of which she was to give proofs of extra- 
ordinary subtlety and consummate duplicity. 

From Greenwich she had removed to London. She 
had no money, and was living "at the King of England's 
table " — in other words, at his expense. Her first care 
was to have a lodging of her own and her own furniture. 
She applied to her husband : she made Montague write 
to the English Ambassador in Paris, Digby, requesting 
him to see M. de Chevreuse on the subject. M. de 
Chevreuse replied that the matter was one that required 
looking into, and that he was sending the Abbe du Dorat 
to London for that purpose, subject to the Cardinal's 
consent to his taking the journey. 

But it was not du Dorat who arrived, it was a mere 
serving man. Digby wrote to Montague: "The Sieur de 
Boispill6 brought M. de Chevreuse leave from Court 
yesterday to send a servant to ask after the health of 
Mme. de Chevreuse." It was a mockery. Mme. de 
Chevreuse sent the lackey back with a civil letter to her 
husband. "I promise myself that you will take care to 
send me what I ask. I beseech you to do it, for I cannot 

198 



IN ENGLAND 

remain much longer in the state in which I now am, and I 
trust it will not become so Bad as to drive me to use any 
other help than that I expect from you, for my subsist- 
ence." Thus pressed by his wife, M. de Chevreuse made 
up his mind to send over Boispille. Boispille was a 
faithful servant, devoted, but somewhat credulous. Riche- 
lieu sent for him, and told him he would consent to his 
going to England, but on one condition only, that he 
should take the Duchess in hand and induce her to make 
her submission to the King. He gave him a letter for 
the Duchess : he was to address all his correspondence 
to du Dorat, who would transmit it to the Cardinal. 

The letter carried by Boispill6 from the Cardinal was 
somewhat haughty in tone. "Madame," wrote Richelieu, 
"M. de Chevreuse having desired the King's permission 
to send the Sieur de Boispille to you, I have not chosen 
to let him go without testifying to you by these few 
words that even as I have an interest in all that affects 
you, I shall never feel content when I think that you 
have not reason to be so. If you are innocent, your 
safety depends on yourself, and if the frivolity of the 
human mind, not to say that of your sex, has led you 
to stumble in a manner that has given His Majesty 
reason to complain, you will find in his goodness that 
which you may expect, and should desire." 

Mme. de Chevreuse made as though she would accept 
the Cardinal's overtures. Boispille wrote that he had been 
very well received, that Mme. de Chevreuse was in an 
excellent frame of mind, that there was nothing in the 
world for which she longed so much as to get back to 
France. Only whenever he tried to have a clear explana- 
tion with her, she put him off. He begged and prayed 
her to tell him what her wishes were, at all events. "We 
are in treaty for Mme. de Chevreuse," writes Montague; 
"we are much pressed to formulate her demands, but 
we have not made any at all."' In the meantime Montague 

199 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

contrived to have a snub administered to the French 
Ambassador, M. de Bellievre. Mme. de Belh^vre was 
informed that she must not expect a seat in the Queen's 
coach : only a few days previously a "tabouret" had been 
granted to the Duchess, and the same honour had been 
withdrawn from the French Ambassadress. Mme. de 
Chevreuse and her friends were to continue to set Richelieu 
at naught by dint of a cunning mixture of apparent good- 
will and real hostility. 

Boispille urged matters on. He was full of confidence. 
The Duchess, he wrote, "charges me to say anything that 
is desired on her part, to hurry on the moment of her 
return, promising to give every kind of satisfaction in the 
future, and never to fail : she protests that she will do 
so well, and so faithfully serve and attach herself to the 
interests and the orders she may receive from his 
Eminence, that she will repair all her past faults, and 
that every one will find the greatest satisfaction in her." 
By dint of entreaties, he had induced her to confess that 
she must, at the least, have a formal declaration from 
the King, which would constitute a general abolition of 
her whole past, including her departure from France. 
And she insisted that this promise should also be made 
to the King of England, W'ho w^ould be answerable for 
its being kept. 

Louis XIII and Richelieu were well inclined to grant 
this abolition ; Boispill6 had sent over a memorandum 
setting forth various affirmations made by Mme. de 
Chevreuse, w'hich were of a nature to satisfy the 
Government. The Duchess declared, he said, that she 
had never entered into any undertaking either with 
England or with Spain. She had never received any 
pension from either country; she had no dealings with 
Lorraine : she certainly did see the Spanish' iVmbassador 
and the other foreign envoys, but that was simply because 
they came to pay their respects to her. Her present conduct 

200 



IN ENGLAND 

appeared quite correct, and she had promised that she 
would behave weh in future. Under these circumstances, 
thought Boispille, the Government might safely send the 
document for which she asked. Louis XIII and Richelieu 
came to a decision. "Madame," wrote Richelieu to the 
Duchess on July 24, "the King has given his willing 
consent to your request. Since you feel you are free from 
all guilt, save for having left the kingdom, he has com- 
manded me to inform you that he gladly grants you 
the abolition, as he would have granted it for any other 
thing you had declared to be on your conscience. The 
sureties you have asked for are being sent to you. If you 
need others still greater, I will gladly serve you in that 
particular." 

The abolition was couched in solemn terms : " Louis, 
by the grace of God, King of France and of Navarre. . . ." 
The King "remitted, forgave, pardoned, and abolished" 
all the faults committed by Mme. de Chevreuse, assured 
her she should never be pursued or punished on their 
account, forbade all officers of his justice to prosecute her 
because of them ; but t;wice over in the document did he 
enumerate the sins of which the Duchess had been guilty, 
to wit : that she had fled from Tours without the King's 
consent ; that she had left the confines of his kingdom 
without his permission ; that she had retired into a country 
belonging to the open enemies of the State; and that she 
had "negotiated with le Due de Lorraine against the 
service " of his Majesty. 

When Mme. de Chevreuse read this document she 
started, and flew into a rage. What ! she cried. She 
was accused of having been in treaty with the Duke of 
Lorraine? But it was a lie! She could not possibly 
accept a document enshrining such a calumny as that ! 
She would have nothing to do with their abolition ! She 
would not go back to France! "iVfter the certainty 
expressed to me," she wrote to du Dorat, "that I used my 

201 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

entreaties to prevent Monsieur le Due de Lorraine from 
coming to an arrangement with the King, and to keep 
him on the side of Spain, a thing of which I never thought, 
I cannot beHeve myself to be safe in France; for I could 
not, while he holds such an opinion, hope for the pro- 
tection of Monseigneur the Cardinal, unless it shall please 
him to rid himself of this suspicion by giving me the 
means of justifying myself, and himself that of thinking 
me worthy that my fault in leaving France should be for- 
gotten, for which I will wait till his goodness affords me the 
necessary surety." Nothing had been gained, after all ! 

From that moment all Belli^vre's letters were full of 
warnings that in all her dealings with him Mme. de 
Chevreuse was affecting an air of open hostility. She 
openly consorted with the enemies of France. She held 
frequent conversations with the agent of the Spanish 
Court, she spoke publicly in favour of Spain. Richelieu 
was very much vexed. He made an attempt to reopen 
negotiations. He had it conveyed to Mme. de Chevreuse 
that his personal feelings for her were unchanged, that she 
might reckon on his friendly offices, that the great thing 
was to find some common ground on which they might 
come to an arrangement. "Consider, sir," wrote Mme. de 
Chevreuse, "the position in which I am, quite content, on 
one hand, with the assurance you send me of your con- 
tinued friendship for me, and much distressed, on the 
other, by the suspicions, or I should rather say the 
certainty, you declare you possess as to a fault which I 
have never committed, and which I confess would be 
doubled by another if, once committed, I were to deny it. 
I confess, sir, that all this places me in so great a difficulty 
that I can see no repose for myself in such a meeting. 
If indeed you had not so certainly persuaded yourself that 
you know it (the fault), or that I could acknowledge it, 
it would be a means to an understanding : but since you 
let yourself be carried away to such a firm conviction 

202 



IN ENGLAND 

against me that it will not admit of any justification, and 
since I cannot make myself guilty without becoming so, I 
have recourse to yourself, sir, and entreat you, by that 
quality of friendship which your generosity promises me, 
to find some expedient whereby his Majesty may have 
satisfaction, and I may be able to return to France in 
safety." The only possible course was to w^ait. 

Thereupon Richelieu was informed that the Duchess 
was trying to get Marie de Medicis brought over to 
London, so as to set up a more efficacious opposition to 
the French Government in England. "Ah," exclaimed 
the poor Cardinal, quite disheartened, "men think some- 
times that animals can do no great harm because they 
can do no good at all, but there is nothing more capable 
of bringing a State to ruin than evil minds protected by 
the weakness of their sex ! " The King of England did 
not care, indeed, to have his mother-in-law at his Court, 
for her bad temper was well known to him, and he refused 
to allow her to come. Then Mme. de Chevreuse made 
Henrietta-Maria write and advise her mother to take ship 
without the King's leave. Marie de Medicis acted on the 
hint. Unwelcome wherever she went, first driven out of 
Flanders, and now forced to leave Holland, where every- 
body was sick of her presence, the only refuge left her 
was her son-in-law's kingdom. She reached England in 
the course of the month of November. 

Immediately a great friendship was struck up between 
the old Queen and the Duchesse de Chevreuse. They 
saw each other every day : Mme. de Chevreuse, well 
know^ing that nothing could be more disagreeable to 
Louis Xni, kept entreating the King of England to press 
the Queen Mother's recall to Paris on his brother-in-law. 
She kept up the closest relations, too, with the Spanish 
Ambassador. Richelieu asserts in his Memoirs that she 
was even in correspondence with the Spanish Prime 
Minister, Olivares. She welcomed all the Cardinal's per- 

20.^ 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

sonal enemies, as, for instance, the Due de la Valette, — 
who had fallen into disgrace with Louis XIII on account 
of his humiliating defeat before Fontarabia, and had 
crossed the Channel rather than face his judges — Le 
Coigneux, Monsigot, and others. Belli^vre wrote that 
Mme. de Chevreuse'was making arrangements to go over 
to Flanders, so as to be in more direct communication 
with the Spaniards. Never had the Duchess been so 
dangerous ! How reopen negotiations with her, bring her 
back to her duty ? Richelieu appealed to her husband. 
Distressed beyond measure by his wife's behaviour, 
living in perpetual terror of being compromised by her 
proceedings, M. de Chevreuse was doing everything he 
could invent to prove his personal zeal for the King's 
service. He was more than attentive to Richelieu : he 
sent big game, snared in his parS at Dampierre, to 
stock the Cardinal's lands in Poitou : he never lost any 
opportunity of affirming the fact that he was too good a 
servant of his Majesty to dream of undertaking any 
business without his master's consent. Somebody sug- 
gested that he should beseech the King to permit his wife 
to return to France. He did it. Richelieu pretended to 
take his petition seriously. "Madame," he wrote to the 
Duchess on January 5, 1639, when he sent du Dorat and 
Boispill6 over to her, "the perpetual entreaties of M. de 
Chevreuse to save you from your ruin, joined with the 
affection I have always felt for whatever concerns you, 
have led me to obtain from a King a passport for the 
Abb6 du Dorat and the Sieur de Boispille, who go to you 
with the intention of doing you service, and leading you 
to think of yourself more than you have ever done." As 
always, Mme. de Chevreuse received this suggestion with 
the most perfect courtesy. "I could hardly receive," she 
says in her answer to the Cardinal, dated January 28, 
"greater proofs of my husband's regard for me than his 
prayers that I may be able to return to France; nor 

204 



IN ENGLAND 

can I hope for their success, save by your assistance, to 
which I acknowledge I owe the good beginnings I see, 
and I trust I may owe their happy ending to your good 
offices." But she warned him beforehand that if there 
was any more talk of the aboHtion, she would never give 
in on the subject of her negotiations with the Duke of 
Lorraine — such negotiations never having had any exist- 
ence in fact. "If the suspicions of me which my misfor- 
tune has engendered," she wrote, "touching the business 
of M. le Due de Lorraine, were true, I would confess 
them to you, not doubting that your generosity would 
obtain me pardon for that, as well as for my departure 
from France." 

When du Dorat and Boispille reached London, they 
found the Duchess on her guard. She paid them com- 
pliments. "What I have been able to discover as to 
her intentions," writes du Dorat to Richelieu on 
January 31, "is an extreme passion to return, a feeling 
of gratitude for the kindness shewn her by your Eminence, 
and a longing to tell you many things, if she had the 
good fortune to be able to see you." But when the two 
envoys tried to arrive at some definite conclusion, the con- 
viction that Mme. de Chevreuse was evading the question 
forced itself upon them. 

Their mission was a difficult one : Richelieu had 
given them the very same abolition that Mme. de 
Chevreuse had refused to accept; and had even forbidden 
them to hand it over to the Duchess till she had furnished 
them with a written acknowledgment, signed with her 
own hand, of the truth of the facts it set forth. Mme. de 
Chevreuse had been furious. "I will confess to you," 
she wrote to Richelieu, "that I was doubly astounded to 
see it (the reference to Lorraine) in the abolition shown 
me by du Dorat, and to hear on what conditions he had 
undertaken to hand it to me ! " On the other hand, du 
Dorat and Boispille had informed the Duchess that the 

205 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

King would allow her to return to France, but not to 
Court — only to Dampierre ; — and even then they did not 
know how long she would be permitted to stay, nor 
whether she would enjoy her liberty there. She had 
thereupon demanded an abolition, pure and simple, without 
any mention of the Lorraine business, and with full liberty 
to go and come as she chose, all over the kingdom. 

Du Dorat and Boispille tried to reason with her. She 
would have leave to go to Dampierre to begin with, and 
after that she would certainly be allowed to come back 
to the Court. The Duchess replied that she refused 
everything. "If your Eminence," wrote du Dorat, in his 
despair, to Richelieu, on February 25, "will give me 
leave to say what I think of this person, I will assure 
you that there never was so unquiet a spirit : necessity 
and the loss of her liberty are two furies that tear her 
in pieces," 

In Paris, now, all was silence. Boispille and du Dorat 
did not know what to do next. "Time is getting on," 
wrote Boispille on March 10; "I had better get back. 
As for the poor Abbe du Dorat, he is bored to death." 
And on the 17th: "We are in a state of misery and 
impatience here which cannot be described. We are quite 
at a loss, the poor Abbe and I. M. du Dorat has fallen 
into such a state of melancholy that truly I think he will 
fall ill of it!" On that very day, the 17th, Richelieu 
despatched his answer to du Dorat. If the Government, 
he said, insisted that Mme, de Chevreuse should acknow- 
ledge her negotiations with Lorraine, it was because this 
"was necessary to its safety." The Cardinal declared he 
would keep her confession a dead secret. Nevertheless, he 
announced, in his desire to reach some solution, he had 
induced the King to grant the abolition pure and simple, 
without any reference to the Lorraine business, which the 
Duchess had insisted on obtaining. Mme. de Chevreuse, 
he added, expressed her astonishment at not being 

206 



IN ENGLAND 

allowed to go and come as she chose within the frontiers 
of France. Only a year previously, just before her flight 
from Couzieres, she had been ordered to keep within the 
boundaries of Touraine. There was no evidence that she 
had done anything since then to deserve any amelioration 
of her condition. From this Richelieu drew the con- 
clusion that the lady's fate lay in her own hands. With 
his letter he enclosed the new abolition : the passage 
touching the Lorraine business had really been suppressed. 
When the Cardinal's courier arrived, at nine o'clock at 
night, Boispille and du Dorat at once hastened to wait on 
Mme. de Chevreuse, and informed her of the contents of 
the packet sent them from Paris. Then permission to 
move about within the borders of France was refused her ? 
She would not go back, the Duchess answered curtly. 
In vain did the two envoys, in sore distress, return to 
the charge on the following day. "Never was there 
unreasonableness nor ingratitude to compare with hers ! " 
wrote the indignant du Dorat to Chavigny on the 24th. 
They discussed, they entreated. "She bade us retire," 
wrote Boispille, "telling us the thing was settled, and 
that no amount of rhetoric would now persuade her. We 
saw her again, at three o'clock in the afternoon, a short 
time before the despatch of this letter — just the same 
thing ! So we have resolved to depart on our way back 
on Saturday or Sunday, God helping us. I can say 
naught, save that this is a very poor, unfortunate lady, 
with a temper that is very contrary to her own good, and 
an enemy of her own self." 

On the 28th, Mme. de. Chevreuse sent her own answer 
direct to Richelieu : her letter was full of ironic defer- 
ence. "Sir," said she to the Cardinal, "I have seen the 
answer you were pleased to make me by your letter to 
M. du Dorat. How deeply you have obliged me ! And 
how unhappy am I to find you so good to me, and yet to 
remain in so much evil fortune ! I pray God that some 

207 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

day my services may prove to you that I am not altogether 
unworthy of the kindnesses I have received from you ! " 

Before du Dorat and Boispille left London, they made 
one final effort. At all events, they said to the Duchess, 
would she acknowledge that she had behaved ill in the 
past, and that she was sorry for it now ? If she was given 
leave to return to France in perfect freedom, would she 
promise to have no more intercourse, inside the frontiers 
or beyond them, with persons whom the King regarded 
with suspicion ? If she was convicted of guilt, would she 
consent to be considered guilty ? After some little reflec- 
tion, Mme. de Chevreuse agreed to reply in the affirm- 
ative. Du Dorat and Boispille then added that they 
themselves would vouch for the truth of her assertions to 
the Cardinal. Mme. de Chevreuse assented. 

When the travellers reached Rueil, they explained the 
concession they had succeeded in obtaining. The Cardinal 
accepted the indirect method thus suggested to him. " We, 
the undersigned," the two envoys now wrote, "declare to 
Monseigneur the Cardinal that the Duchesse de Chevreuse 
sincerely acknowledges the evil conduct of which she has 
been guilty in the past, and repents of it with her whole 
heart," etc. . . . No more explicit attestation was forth- 
coming, and the Cardinal must e'en be content with this 
declaration. Louis XIII thought it would be better to give 
in. He would allow Mme. de Chevreuse to go to Dam- 
pierre, provided she would undertake to live there quietly, 
and enter into no more cabals. Richelieu himself informed 
the Duchess of the King's decision. 

From London, whither they had returned, du Dorat and 
Boispille wrote that Mme. de Chevreuse was behaving in 
a quite satisfactory manner. Everything was going on 
well : the business was apparently quite settled, all that 
remained to be done was the winding-up, when letters from 
the Duchess were delivered to du Dorat and to Richelieu. 
In her letter to du Dorat, she said : "I will only write you 

208 



IN ENGLAND 

three lines, to bid you express to Monseigneur the Cardinal 
the sense I have of the kindness he has induced His 
Majesty to show me. I leave the rest to BoispiUe, who 
will write you, within the next two days, in the most par- 
ticular way, concerning the reasons which delay me here." 
To Richelieu she wrote : "Sir, I have no words wherewith 
to thank you in a sufficiently worthy manner for the kind- 
ness you have won for me from the King, but I have the 
determination it is my duty to feel, to deserve it by my 
very humble services. You will hear, sir, through M. du 
Dorat, the reasons which prevent me from going to enjoy 
it as soon as I should have desired, and I pray you to 
believe that I continue to preserve the deepest sense of 
the kindness you show me, and in which I have the fullest 
confidence." 

What was the matter now ? Boispille made inquiries : 
the Duchess, it appeared, was hampered by difficulties 
about money. She was heavily in debt, and her creditors 
would not let her depart : it was a question, so Boispille 
wrote, of paying up or letting the whole thing go. Mme. 
de Chevreuse wanted the Government to help her to 
find 12,000 livres. Was that all? Richelieu was not so 
pinched that he could not find money : he sent over 18,000 
livres. This time every difficulty seemed cleared away. 

Boispille made his preparations for the journey : the 
route had been chosen — the travellers were to go by 
Dieppe; the governors of Dieppe and Rouen had received 
orders to welcome the Duchess with every sign of respect. 
The Queen of England had undertaken to get a ship sup- 
plied by the Government, and as this ship could not sail 
for another fortnight, the date of the departure from Dover 
had been fixed for the 13th of June. The Duchess had 
bidden all her farewells : she had waited on Queen 
Henrietta-Maria; she had written to the King of England; 
she had asked her husband to send her coaches and horses 
to meet her at Dieppe, and had requested the Abbe du 
p 209 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Dorat to await her there ; Boispille was counting the hours, 
when all of a sudden, on the 4th of June, Mme. de 
Chevreuse sent for him. 

He found her in a state of extreme agitation. She told 
him she had just received two letters from Lorraine which 
had caused her the greatest perplexity ; she held them out 
to him : the first, which was anonymous, informed her that 
if she went to France her ruin was a certain thing ; she was 
only being coaxed back to Dampierre so that her enemies 
might more easily lay hands upon her. The Cardinal had 
said too much about her conduct with respect to Spain and 
Lorraine for him to allow her to go unpunished now. The 
second letter, which was dated from Sierck, on the 26th of 
May, bore the signature of the Due de Lorraine. "I am 
certain," he wrote, "of the designs of the Cardinal de 
Richelieu, which are to offer you every imaginable thing, 
so as to oblige you to return to France, and then at once 
to cause you to perish miserably. The Marquis de Ville, 
who has talked both with him and with M. de Chavigny, 
can make you more learned on this subject, since he heard 
it with his own ears. I expect him every minute, and if 
I believed I had enough power over your mind to divert 
you from taking this resolution, I would go and cast myself 
at your feet, to make you realize your absolute destruction, 
and beseech you, by everything that may be most dear to 
you in this world, to avoid this misfortune, too cruel for 
the whole of this earth, and more unbearable to me than 
to all the rest of the world." 

Boispille exclaimed loudly : What did these letters mean ? 
He tried hard to nullify the effect they had produced. But 
the impression on the Duchess's mind had been too deep. 
After all, she said, the Cardinal had not given her any 
assurance ! As the Marquis de Ville was coming over to 
explain matters to her, she desired at any rate to wait and 
see him. "A wretched business," wrote Boispille to Paris; 
and he advised Richelieu to send Mme. de Chevreuse the 

210 



IN ENGLAND 

assurances for which she seemed to wish. "Remember, 
sir," he wrote, "if it so please you, that in the letters you 
have done her the honour to write to her, and which are 
truly full to the brim of affection and kindness, you say 
nothing to her as to her safety, for which she looks to you 
alone. I think that if it pleased your Eminence to write 
a word as to this, to her, or to me, it would overthrow all 
these counsels, past or to come." 

Richelieu was irritated beyond expression. He con- 
tented himself with writing three lines, as follows, and 
desiring Boispille to lay them before the Duchess : "Those 
who alarm Mme. de Chevreuse are in the wrong : she has 
nothing to fear in France ; anybody who tries to make her 
believe to the contrary is wickedly deceiving her." Mme. 
de Chevreuse merely replied that she intended to wait for 
M. de Ville. "I have told her, and represented to her," 
wrote Boispille on the 9th of June, "all the reasons which 
I believe led the Duke Charles to write as he did to her, 
which was simply to prevent her from going back on 
account of their own private interests. I still hope, 
Monseigneur, that the goodness and generosity of your 
Eminence will overlook all this, and pardon all these form- 
alities, or, if I dare call them so, these tendernesses, of a 
mind which, I believe, only needs a little time to learn 
patience and gentleness." Madame de Chevreuse, for her 
part, wrote to du Dorat, who was then in France, on the 
13th of June: "I am in the same state as Boispille has 
told you, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the person 
he has mentioned to you (M. de Ville), to obtain a complete 
explanation, without which I cannot, and must not, leave 
this country." 

So they had to wait ; and they waited till the 3rd of 
August: then, at last, M. de Ville arrived. Mme. de 
Chevreuse insisted that his explanation should be given 
in Boispille's own presence. M. de Ville related that in 
the course of the preceding winter he had travelled, on his 

211 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

way from Paris, with a certain Lange, who had told him 
that, knowing the affection with which Mme. de Chevreuse 
was regarded in Lorraine, he felt it his duty; to warn him 
tliat if the Duchess returned to France she was lost. Two 
days previously, it appeared, the Cardinal, in the course 
of a conversation with M. de Chavigny as to the Duchess, 
had declared himself exceedingly angry because that lady 
denied having advised the Due de Lorraine not to treat 
with France, and added that he had letters of hers which 
formally attested the fact, "that this affair was perfectly 
clear, and that when Mme. de Chevreuse came back to 
France, they would force her to talk good French, and that 
if she fancied she could deceive them, she was deceiving 
herself ! " Boispille protested. Who had told Lange this 
tale ? That he had not divulged. The discussion was 
carried on apart from Mme. de Chevreuse : no definite 
result was possible. M. de Ville, having consented to 
draw up a copy of his communication and sign it, departed 
on the 7th : he had formally advised the Duchess not to 
go back to France ! 

On the 9th she wrote to Richelieu, formulating her 
definite request for his categorical assurance as to her 
safety. "I very humbly entreat you, sir," she wrote, "to 
do me the kindness of telling me frankly whether you are 
so satisfied as to the past that I need not preserve the 
smallest reason for suspicion as regards either the business 
of M. de Lorraine before I left France, or other things 
which have happened since." 

Richelieu was sick of it all. He replied on August 30 
— a curt letter, in which he consented to give the fresh 
assurance demanded from him. "Madame," he said, "the 
King has thought it very extraordinary that after having 
received your abolition more than three months ago, just as 
it had been desired for you at that time, you should have 
made difficulties about using it as you had said you in- 
tended to do." She was being deceived, he added, by 

212 



IN ENGLAND 

imaginary fears. "You are too judicious not to be aware 
that for nothing on earth would his Majesty grant you an 
abolition of a thing for which he intended to prosecute you 
in France, later. However, since the Sieur de Ville has 
tried to persuade you that there was an intention of prose- 
cuting you for that business of M. de Lorraine, I do not 
fear to declare to you that the King's intention has never 
been, and is not, such ; and that you will enjoy the benefit 
of your abolition in its full and complete effects, without 
any further mention of the negotiations with M. de 
Lorraine." That was clear enough : what more could she 
want? 

Mme. de Chevreuse responded, in dilatory fashion, in a 
letter dated September i6. She thanked the Cardinal, 
"but," she added, "the apprehensions with which I have 
been filled have been so great that my mind has not been 
able to cast them off, all at once, so as to permit of my 
returning to France at present. You must, if you please, 
forgive my weakness." To du Dorat and Boispill6 she 
wrote that she had received fresh details, which prevented 
her from setting off. 

"I despair of inducing Mme. de Chevreuse to return," 
wrote the disgusted du Dorat to Richelieu on Septem- 
ber 23, "after so many evasions and puttings off." The 
reasons the Duchess put forward were "ridiculous," she 
was asking for "leisure to rest her mind, after all the terrors 
which, she declares, have been inflicted upon her ! She 
thinks minds ought to be dieted as well as bodies ! That 
is a treatment to which hers should not be subjected, for 
it might very easily escape for good ! " "I have neglected 
nothing," added Boispill6 on September 24, when he had 
returned to France, "that might make Mme. la Duchesse 
de Chevreuse realize the deep obligations she owes your 
Eminence." Nothing moved her! "So being convinced, 
Monseigneur, that my presence with her was no longer 
necessary, I have thought your Eminence would not take 

213 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

it ill that I should travel to this place." Mme. de Chev- 
reuse was to hold her peace, and let six months roll by, 
before she gave the Cardinal another sign of life. 

But her existence during that period was anything but 
inactive. Day after day despatches reached the Cardinal 
from London, crammed with details of the annoyances 
caused by her sayings and her doings. It was the 
Secretary of the Embassy, M. de Montreuil, in the 
absence of M. de Belli^vre, the Ambassador, who kept 
Richelieu informed. Mme. de Chevreuse was making her 
house the meeting-place of all those of the Cardinal's 
enemies who had emigrated to England — La Valette, 
Soubise (the Protestant leader, who had fled from France 
after the defeat of his co-religionists), La Vieuville (a 
former Minister who had fallen into disgrace, and had been 
tried and sentenced), Monsigot, Le Coigneux, etc. She 
was on the most intimate terms with the representatives of 
the foreign powers at war with France. M. de Ville had 
come back to England to recruit a thousand men who were 
to fight on the Continent against the troops of France. 
"Mme. de Chevreuse had used her credit" to aid the 
success of his undertaking. M. de Ville lodged in her 
house, sat at her table, used her coaches. Another time 
it was the Spanish Ambassador, the Marquis de Velada, 
who had gone to see Mme. de Chevreuse the moment he 
arrived in London : the Duchess lent him her finest coach ; 
she went to considerable expense to do him honour. An 
anonymous informant, signing himself "Titus" supplied 
details of the splendour of this gathering. On another 
occasion M. de Montreuil reported the intercourse between 
Mme. de Chevreuse and Prince Thomas of Savoy, com- 
manding the armies acting in Flanders against the troops 
of Louis Xin. The Savoyard Envoy in London, Hallot, 
was constantly in the Duchess's house. Even Rossetti, 
the Nuncio, was inveigled by her into opposing the French 
Government. In years to come, when Rossetti (who has 

214 



IN ENGLAND 

been made a Cardinal meanwhile) is sent by the Pope to 
represent him at the Congress of Miinster, Mazarin will 
put his pen through his name, with a reminder that 
Rossetti, when in London, "held very secret and frequent 
communications with the Duchesse de Chevreuse," and 
that the Pope's Ministers know how Mme. de Chevreuse 
"strove to harm the State" at that period. 

Richelieu knew not what to do. His exasperation 
against Mme. de Chevreuse had reached the boiling-point. 
Boispille relates in one of his letters that it had become 
impossible to mention the name of the Duchess in the 
Cardinal's presence, so furious did the subject make him. 
Was there no possible means at all of putting an end to 
this noxious creature's caballing, and making sure of her? 
Thereupon — this was in May, 1640 — the Due de Chevreuse 
once more offered his services : he proposed to go to 
England himself, and to bring his wife back with him 
to France by fair means or foul. 

The Duke had been groaning more and more under his 
wife's conduct. He had stood by the Government to the 
utmost of his power. He had always prevented the send- 
ing over of anything the Duchess had asked for. In vain 
had she begged him to let her have the most humble or the 
most useful of her possessions : "the small wearing apparel 
in my cabinet, the perfume-box mounted in silver with the 
papers in it, at Couzi^res ; above all, the coffer with the 
silver nails, and, if possible, La Porte, my tailor, with my 
clothes." The Duke had sent no answer. He openly com- 
plained of his wife. One day, at St. Germain, the Queen 
met him and asked him for news of the Duchess. He 
replied, with much bitterness, that he was sorry indeed 
that Her Majesty was preventing her from coming back. 
He had written over and over again to the exile, setting 
forth the dangers in which she was involving himself and 
all their house, and the difficulties in which she was placing 
him, even reducing him "to starvation." He had gone so 

215 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

far as to send Renault, the serving-man, to her, to beg her 
to return. "I have learnt by Renault," wrote the Duchess 
in reply, "the feelings you have as to my return, and your 
desire to be informed as to mine. To which I will answer 
you very truly that I dare to say they are even greater than 
yours, in my longing to find myself in France, and in a 
position to remedy the state of our affairs, and live in peace 
with you and my children." Unhappily, that was not pos- 
sible ! Some means had yet to be discovered. "That, I 
swear to you, is what I daily pray God to grant me, and 
I do all I can to find it." M. de Chevreuse had replied 
stiffly that she was telling him untruths, and that she was 
not making any effort to get back. "I have laboured for 
my return as much as you, and more," answered the 
Duchess ; " I have been so overwhelmed with various 
terrors that I know you would have pitied me for the 
anxieties in which I have lived." It was after the endless 
evasions and equivocations of the year 1639 and the early 
part of 1640, that the Duke made up his mind to join his 
wife in England, and bring her back on his own authority 
as her lord and master. 

He asked Richelieu's leave. "Sir," he wrote to the Car- 
dinal, "permit me, if it so please you, to speak to you of 
the despair into which the slowness of my wife's return 
has cast me. Having considered all the care and impor- 
tunity she has caused your Eminence, her promises and 
her delays as to her return, none of which she has carried 
out, notwithstanding the entreaties I myself have addressed 
to her ; considering your Eminence has always done me the 
honour of treating me with kindness, I have resolved 
humbly to beseech and entreat you to get me leave from 
the King to go to England and fetch her back, with the 
assurance of being honoured by the kindness of His 
Majesty, and your own, sir." Richelieu gave his con- 
sent. But he had not much confidence in this particular 
method. 

216 



IN ENGLAND 

And, in fact, when, thanks to an indiscretion on the part 
of Auger, the Secretary to the EngHsh Embassy, the news 
of the Duke's intended journey reached London, a most 
indescribable scene took place in the Duchess's house. 
"Never was such agitation seen," wrote M. de Montreuil. 
Mme. de Chevreuse vowed she would not wait for her 
husband ; that if he persisted in coming over, she would 
go away to Flanders. She waited on the King of England, 
to entreat him to stand by her. To calm her mind, Charles 
assured her that "since she had placed herself under his 
protection he would not allow her to be forced to go back 
to France." Mme. de Chevreuse sent a courier to her 
husband, beseeching him not to undertake the journey. 
The Duke replied that his only intention in going to 
London was to see her, and talk over their business matters 
with her. Why was she in such a state of alarm ? 

He had begun his preparations. Louis XIII had given 
him a letter to the King of England, passports for himself 
and the Duchess, a note containing the names of the 
persons he had better avoid while he was in London — 
La Valette, La Vieuville, Le Coigneux, Monsigot. Chev- 
reuse had not a halfpenny left : he was in debt in all 
directions; he had asked for an advance of 12,000 crowns, 
and it had been granted. He was just about to depart. 

When the Duchess heard of all these arrangements, she 
wrote her husband another letter, dated April 23. She 
besought him to "change his intention, which was 
capable," she declared, "of absolutely preventing her return 
to France instead of hastening it," she being firmly re- 
solved, she added, "if you override all the reasons I have 
given you, and come here, to start the instant you arrive, 
and pass over into the countries of the King of Spain." 
An ultimatum and a threat ! 

When that letter reached M. de Chevreuse, he took up 
his pen, and the poor man poured out all his distress and 
indignation and alarm, in his answer to his wife. " I cannot 

217 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

understand," he said, "on what pretext you can desire to 
fly when I want to go and see you, after having written you 
the reason for my journey, and made you so clearly under- 
stand that I have no definite object save that of seeing 
you and finding out the state of your affairs. I speak to 
you now as your husband, and one who loves you as he 
should, but who is beginning, too, to open his eyes and his 
ears. The times, our private affairs, and your behaviour, 
force me to this : for as for trying to make me believe you 
really fear my using violence to force you to return, I am 
quite certain you do not dream of that ! Why, then, this 
pretence? It must be to my person alone that you have 
so much aversion : that is passing strange ! After having 
assured me, this long time, that you desired to return, and 
when, amidst all these uncertainties, I desire to go and see 
you, and fetch you back, you are pleased to tell me that as 
soon as I arrive you will take to flight and retire into an 
enemy's country. How can I, in my own person, cause 
so great an extremity and change in your intentions 
as not only to make you delay them, but absolutely alter 
them, and so bring us both to ruin and destruction ? 
Think well of this ! Avoid your own shame and mine, 
rather than my person ! To conclude : I cannot change 
my plan, and if I could, I would not ; I have gone too far 
in this matter of my journey. I must depart : and with 
the promise that I shall not only be at Calais on the fourth 
day of next month, but I will there await news from you 
until the eighth, and then, if you are still in the same wise 
mind as that you have so often written me, and which you 
would have all the world believe is yours, I will not travel 
farther, and will wait for you in France, wherever you 
choose. But remember, I pray you, that you must not 
deceive me again ! I am not a fool ; I know very well 
what I am writing to you : I have thought abou't it only too 
much ! It is a very sore thing to me to see you treat me 
as you do, and to see myself and our children brought 

218 




THE DUG DE CHEVREUSE 

{From a contemporajy painting in the Blois Museiati) 



IN ENGLAND 

down to starvation and to the extremities to which your 
behaviour has reduced us, with the impending ruin of our 
house. I will confess to you that I am in great distress, 
and that I do not know to what cause I am to ascribe 
your behaviour, which is that of a very worthless person. 
Recollect, once more, that I well know what I am saying ! " 

M, de Chevreuse was resolved to start. ' He was to leave 
Paris on May 3, a Thursday; Friday, the 4th, would see 
him at Calais, as he had explained to his wife. He would 
cross afterwards. Just as he was departing, he received the 
news that his Duchess had put her threat into execution, 
had left England, and landed in Flanders, on Spanish 
territory ! 

She had taken her departure on Tuesday, May i, at 
eleven o'clock in the morning, accompanied by the Spanish 
Ambassador, the Marquis de Velada; the Due de la Valette, 
La Vieuville, Montague, Craft, and De Ville. By the 
King's order, Lord Newport had attended her as far as the 
Downs, in case she should meet M. de Chevreuse. Charles 
had presented her, as a parting gift, with a diamond worth 
10,000 crowns. She had embarked at Rochester on the 5th, 
and on the 8th, after an alarm, had landed, with Craft, at 
Dunkirk, then a foreign port. 

M. de Chevreuse was quite overwhelmed. He sent word 
at once to Chavigny, the Secretary of State : he waited 
on Richelieu ; he handed over all the letters he had received 
from his wife, so terrified was he lest he should be suspected 
of being in the plot with her. Richelieu desired him to 
write to Charles I and beg the King to have the goodness 
not to receive the Duchess into his kingdom in future. 
M. de Chevreuse obeyed : he presented his request, so he 
declared, on bended knees and with clasped hands." 
Charles I replied: "Your wife being of the quality she 
is, and never having given me, during her stay at my 
Court, the smallest cause for displeasure, I do not see how 
I can refuse to allow her to return if she so decides. That 

219 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

IS a favour that all private persons may claim ; how much 
more, then, may it be hoped for by a lady of eminent 
quality ! " He vi^as in the right. 

Meanwhile, Mme. de Chevreuse, at Dunkirk, was suffer- 
ing, from the very moment of her landing, from the miser- 
able consequences of the false position in which she had 
placed herself. She had no money, and hardly a friend. 
She hesitated about proceeding to Brussels. But where 
else was she to go ? In her dismay, she made up her mind 
to try her chance in Paris. She wrote a letter to 
Louis XIII, accusing her "misfortune" as the cause of 
what had just happened : she had gone to Dunkirk, she 
said, with as much regret as " I felt when I went into 
Spain, and with the same determination to leave it as 
soon as the necessity which has brought me here permits 
it." She made a great declaration of her respect for the 
King, and "the affection she owed his person and his 
service." It was too late. Louis XIII did not reply. 

Then she wrote to Anne of Austria, appealing to her 
kindness, begging her to pity her in her suffering, beseech- 
ing her to influence the King in her favour. The letter was 
intercepted. By the King's orders, it was handed un- 
opened to the Queen. Her Majesty refused to take it, and 
said, "she did not care to open any letter from a person 
who conducted herself as Mme. de Chevreuse did, and who 
was in the place where she was. She did not know what 
fancy or what artifice had induced that woman to write to 
her ! " 

Mme. de Chevreuse addressed herself to Richelieu. "I 
acknowledge," she wailed, "that at this hour I do not know 
what to think of my misfortunes ! " She implored the 
Cardinal to show her mercy ; she mentioned the dangers 
to which her husband's journey to London had exposed 
her, without specifying what those dangers' were : she 
avowed "the pain it cost her to make up her mind to go 
further into this country " : she wanted to return to France ; 

220 



IN ENGLAND 

she besought the "good graces of the King," the "good- 
will" of the Cardinal. Richelieu, too, sent no answer. 

She wrote to her husband. M. de Chevreuse ordered 
the servant who brought him the letter to carry it instantly, 
with the seal unbroken, to the Secretary of State, M. de 
Chavigny. 

The Duchess was in despair. Nobody at Brussels 
seemed to desire her presence ; she was advised to go to 
Bruges. The King of Spain and Olivares were disposed 
to think she had better come to Madrid. At the bottom of 
her heart she would rather have gone back to France. She 
was forsaken, without resource of any kind. " I am ruined, 
and as it were in a desert," she wrote; "nobody gives me 
any consolation, I cannot see any one without render- 
ing them an object of suspicion, and my solitude is stuffed 
with a thousand mortifications." 

But she was not the sort of woman to let herself be dis- 
heartened for long at a time. She would pull herself 
together; she would defy misfortune. What did it matter, 
after all? "I shall always have the satisfaction," she said 
proudly, "of having tried to sacrifice myself a second time 
for my own blood, and despised all the dangers I risked 
in the doing of it ! Nothing makes one so bold as a good 
conscience ! Nobody shall ever have cause to cast the 
smallest reproach on me, but rather the reverse : I will 
always behave to every one like a Christian, and a very 
generous one ! " M. de Chevreuse, she said, was the cause 
of everything that had happened to her. "If the husband 
had not ruined everything, things might have been ordered 
just as people desired ! " She invoked the help of Provi- 
dence : " I have so recommended my intentions to God that 
I shall accept all that may come of them as being sent by 
His hand. ... I hope, God putting His hand to this 
business, that all things will shortly fade away ! " 

It was impossible for her to stay on at Dunkirk. She 
went to Brussels. She busied herself there, began her old 

221 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

tricks. She saw the governor of the Low Countries, Don 
Antonio Sarmiento, circumvented him, made love to him. 
Though she was near her fortieth year, her charm must still 
have been irresistible, for — so Mazarin tells us — Antonio 
Sarmiento fell into her clutches. Through him she 
recovered her power. On November 6, 1640, M. de Mon- 
treuil reported to Bellievre that she was offering to act as 
go-between for the King of Spain on one hand, and La 
Valette and Soubise on the other — these gentlemen having 
promised to raise a rebellion against Louis XIII in 
Guyenne, in consideration of their being allowed a thou- 
sand crowns a month. A few weeks later, she was throwing 
herself heart and soul into the revolt of the Comte de 
Soissons. 

The Comte de Soissons, who had taken up arms against 
Louis XIII on the frontier, near Sedan, had sent one of 
his gentlemen, Alexandre de Campion, a young and 
brilliant cavalier about thirty years of age, as his envoy to 
win over the Duchess. Campion had not found it difficult 
CO obtain the adhesion of Mme. de Chevreuse. She wrote 
to Olivares, she swept Don Antonio Sarmiento into the 
business ; she helped Campion to raise troops and to find 
officers for them. The sudden close of the undertaking is 
a matter of history. Soissons was killed on the battle- 
field of Marfee, in the moment of victory. "I was so per- 
suaded," wrote Campion to the Duchess on July 21, 1641, 
"of the sorrow the death of M. le Comte would cause you, 
that even if you had not testified it in your letter, I should 
have believed in it none the less. The interests of all those 
to whom Monseigneur the Cardinal bears ill will were so 
bound up with his, that as many illustrious and unhappy 
persons lose all their hope in losing him, and as of these 
you are the chief, you lose in proportion to the advantage 
you would have gained by his victory." 

"You are the chief of all those to whom the Cardinal 
bears ill-will." Campion was right ! Till Richelieu 

222 



IN ENGLAND 

breathed his last, the Duchess was to continue his in- 
veterate enemy, and obstinately to adhere to her refusal 
to return to France : she was never to see his face again. 

In a Memorandum, tinged with melancholy, drawn up 
by the Cardinal on June 15, 1640, he demonstrates to the 
King that there is no hope of peace with external 
enemies, the Spaniards being determined not to conclude 
any treaty, and Mme. de Chevreuse having set forth to 
them all the reasons likely to make them adhere to this 
resolve. He sums these reasons up : A sick monarch, 
weary of the war ; an invalid prime minister, who has but 
a short time to live ; and, when both Sovereign and 
Cardinal shall have passed away, the return of all the 
exiles, and France a prey to disorders in which the 
Spaniards will surely find their account. Richelieu was 
a true prophet ! 

Mme. de Chevreuse was resolved to await the realiza- 
tion of his prediction. She was not to await it long. On 
December 2, 1642, after a few weeks' illness, the Cardinal, 
worn out in body, exhausted by prolonged bad health, 
drew his last breath. 



223 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII : THE RETURN OF MADAME 
DE CHEVREUSE 

Animosity or Louis XIII against Mme. de Chevreuse — The King's 
Death — Return of Mme. de Chevreuse — Her Intrigues : The " Im- 
portants " — The plot against Mazarin — Mme. de Chevreuse in exile 
— Her underhand dealings — Her flight into Flanders — 1643-47. 

As long as Richelieu lived, and Louis XIII, worn by 
suffering, grew weaker and weaker, the contemporary con- 
viction that the monarch was the Cardinal's prisoner, a 
mere toy in his Minister's hands, grew continually 
stronger. The King's attitude, on the very morrow of the 
Cardinal's death, may well have undeceived it. 

To the great surprise of Louis XIII, St. Germain was 
invaded, the moment the breath was out of the Cardinal's 
body, by a host of suitors, all convinced that everything 
in the kingdom would now be changed, that Richelieu's 
friends were to be driven out, fresh Ministers summoned to 
power, the exiles recalled, the prisoners set free, and all 
the victims of the late regime reinstated in their dignities 
and honours. The King grew angry. He was well aware 
of the theory which represented him to be a "sluggard 
king," ruled with absolute power by a "mayor of the 
palace." All that had been seen in print, often enough, 
in the libels published during the fifteen years of his 
reign : his own brother had written it to him, in dis- 
respectful letters which their disputes had made public 
property. A score of times Louis had endeavoured, directly 
or indirectly, to assert the contrary : no attention had ever 
been paid to his denials. 

He now began by making it known all over the king- 

224 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

dom, in letters addressed to the Governor of every province, 
that the Cardinal's death did not in any sense modify the 
poHcy of the Government : the Minister's former colla- 
borators retained their offices, the exiles remained in 
banishment ; as for the suitors, His Majesty announced that 
"he would send those who had the boldness to speak to him 
of banished persons, prisoners, and other wretches, to the 
Bastille." One of his former favourites, Barradas, fancy- 
ing he had only been sacrificed to a personal antipathy 
on Richelieu's part, caused his entreaty for leave to return 
to the Louvre to be submitted to the King, and Louis 
XIII "curtly replied that he (Barradas) had better stay 
quietly at home, and if he should need his services he 
would let him know it." Wearied at last by the influx of 
people, Louis XIII left Saint-Germain and betook himself 
to Versailles, where etiquette permitted of his living alone, 
far from the Court and Court intriguers. Goulas thus 
sums it up : " All the persons who presented themselves 
in the hope of serving their friends or relations who had 
been persecuted under the late Government, or of finding 
their advantage in the death of his Eminence, were 
extremely disappointed, and as the same Ministers 
remained in office, and followed the same maxims, there 
was no sign that the Cardinal de Richelieu was dead, and 
that fortune was likely to disturb and confuse the affairs of 
France." 

Less than any other person was Mme. de Chevreuse 
warranted in the hope the King's displeasure might be 
softened. She knew how deeply he disliked her, she knew 
too well how many and various were the elements that went 
to make up his personal animosity against her. She 
thought it wiser to put no request forward. In the course 
of the few months he had to live, Louis XIII was to give 
public proof of his inveterate rage and hostility against her. 

Even while his vital powers slowly failed, consumed as he 
was by a slow decline, his mind, clear and resolute as ever, 
9 225 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

was haunted as by a fixed idea — the thought of Mme. 
de Chevreuse. In his talks with Mazarin, with Anne of 
Austria, with Chavigny, he constantly referred to her, and 
spoke of her "hotly, saying that confusion, disorder 
and misfortune would never be absent from the place where 
the said lady might be, and that wherever she had gone 
she had done fatal harm ! " Not only did he refuse to 
admit he could possibly be asked to allow Mme. de 
Chevreuse to return to France, but he was careful to say, 
over and over again, that she must not be allowed, at 
any price, to come back after his own death. He laid the 
greatest stress on this, asserting that no one knew better 
than himself what complications that woman was capable 
of causing : they must protect themselves against her 
"like the plague." In one of his letters Mazarin, recall- 
ing this advice, sadly writes : "The late King was inspired 
by God for the good of this kingdom ! " 

And it was this particular anxiety, in part, which caused 
Louis XIII so much perplexity as to the arrangements he 
should make for his son's Regency. One of his reasons 
for refusing to leave Anne of Austria full authority as 
Regent was that he feared the Duchess might recover her 
former influence over the Queen's mind, and foresaw the 
lamentable results, from the political point of view, of the 
power of a creature concerning whose intrigues with the 
Spaniards he was only too well informed. "He could not 
make up his mind," writes La Rochefoucald, "to proclaim 
the Queen Regent, having always suspected her of a secret 
understanding with Spain, and not doubting that it (the 
understanding) would be still further fomented by Mme. 
de Chevreuse." Mme. de Chevreuse, to carry her own 
ideas through in the Council Chamber, would certainly 
demand the recall of Chateauneuf to the Ministry : so the 
necessity for keeping Chateauneuf at a distance was bound 
up, in the mind of Louis XIII, with that of leaving the 
Duchess in her exile. 

226 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

Thus when, on April 21, 1643, just three weeks before 
he actually passed away, the King, feeling death close 
upon him, at last drew up the Declaration whereby he 
refused Anne of Austria sovereign authority as Regent, 
and nominated the Council which was to rule the State in 
the name of his infant son, Louis XIV, he took care that 
the exclusion of Mme. de Chevreuse from the kingdom and 
the continued absence of Chateauneuf should be speci- 
fically mentioned in it. "Seeing it is our intention," he 
wrote, "to provide for all the subjects which might in any 
manner disturb the good settlement we here make, to pre- 
serve the peace and quietness of our realm, our know- 
ledge of the evil conduct of the Lady Duchess of Chev- 
reuse and the artifices she has hitherto used to make 
quarrels within our kingdom, the factions and intelligences 
she keeps up outside it, and with our enemies, leads us to 
judge it wise to forbid her — as we do now forbid her — to 
come into our kingdom during the war; and our will is 
that, even when peace has been made and carried out, 
she shall not return into this kingdom save by the order 
of the said Lady Regent, with the consent of the said 
Council, and nevertheless on condition that she shall never 
make her dwelling, nor be, in any place near the Court, or 
the said Lady Queen." 

And as to Chateauneuf : "Seeing that for great and im- 
portant reasons, affecting the welfare of our service, we 
have been constrained to deprive the Sieur de Chateauneuf 
of the office of Keeper of the vSeals of France, and to have 
him taken to the Castle of Angouleme, where he has 
remained until this present time, according to our orders, 
our will and pleasure are that the said Sieur de Chateauneuf 
shall remain in the same state, and in the same said 
Castle of Angouleme, until after peace shall have been con- 
cluded and carried out, on condition, nevertheless, that he 
shall only then be set at liberty by the order of the said 
Lady Regent and with the consent of the said Council, 

227 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

which will give orders concerning the place to which he 
shall retire, either within the kingdom, or beyond the 
borders of the kingdom, as may be thought most 
expedient." 

Mme. de Motteville, in her Memoirs, and Mazarin, in one 
of his letters, tell us how, while the rough draft of this 
Declaration was being read aloud to the dying King, he 
lay listening, in silence and with closed eyes. When the 
reader reached the passage dealing with Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, Louis roused himself, and lifted himself up in the 
bed, with a feverish light in his eyes; then, when the 
last words had been spoken, he cried, with anger in his 
voice, " That is the devil ! There ! That is the devil ! " 
Goulas adds that M. de Chevreuse, who was in the 
adjoining room, was much distressed by the King's 
words, and Louis sent him a message to the effect that he 
had the greatest personal esteem for him, and "testified 
that he had always served him well." 

On May 14, 1643, Louis XIII died. 

iVnne of Austria, advised by Mazarin, caused the King's 
will to be set aside by Parliament, laid hands on the 
sovereign power as Regent which her husband had refused 
to give her, and set out to rule the kingdom. At the 
solemn session held to proclaim the Parliament's decision, 
the little King, "a baby in a bib, was carried in by the 
Due de Chevreuse, his Great Chamberlain." Was this a 
portent? M. de Chevreuse was full of hope. If the new 
Government, thought he, had paid so little heed to the late 
King's wishes on the point which had lain nearest his 
heart, surely it was still less likely to insist on less im- 
portant injunctions, such as that connected with the exile 
of his Duchess! M. de Chevreuse was mistaken ! 

When Anne of Austria took up the Regency she 
assumed the reins of power with a heart that was far from 
brave. She knew nothing at all about State affairs, and 
besides, "her lack of confidence in herself and her humility 

228 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

were so great," writes Mme. de Motteville, "that she could 
not be otherwise than convinced of her own incapacity for 
government." Convinced liimself as to this incapacity, 
Louis XIII, on his death-bed, had earnestly charged her not 
to part with the Minister he was leaving with her — Mazarin. 
An Italian by birth, noted by Richelieu and by the King 
himself on account of his remarkable qualities as a 
politician, his immense experience of business, and his 
exceedingly sound sense, Mazarin had devoted himself to 
the service of France, Louis XIII, anxious to leave a 
statesman behind him who^ — amidst frivolous and carping 
courtiers, and a public opinion that varied from day to 
day, and was apt to call out for peace at any price — 
would realize the object of the policy of the country 
and carry that policy through, had made Mazarin a 
Cardinal and his Minister, had initiated him into his own 
views, had insisted on his standing Godfather to the future 
Louis XIV, so as to force on him certain duties as the 
boy's helper and protector which would bind him closer 
to the child, and had extracted a promise from him that 
he would never abandon Anne of Austria or the young 
King. Mazarin had given his word. Anne of Austria, in 
her ignorance and her alarm, could not do otherwise than 
accept the statesman thus recommended to her; she con- 
tinued him in his office, and learning as she did, day by 
day, to value his powers, she kept him about her, faithfully, 
till he died. History and her own contemporaries have 
been surprised by this fidelity. They have sought to 
explain it by asserting that the two were bound together 
by an affair of the heart, and that in the end they were 
married. The correspondence of Anne of Austria and 
Mazarin, which proves the exceedingly lively friendship 
and close understanding that existed between them, has 
seemed to confirm this explanation, put forward originally 
by various pamphleteers. But, mysterious though some 
passages in these letters are, as a matter of fact they supply 

229 



THE DUCHESSE. DE CHEVREUSE 

no decisive proof. The silence on this subject of all those 
who approached the Queen and her Minister most nearly, 
whether as enemies or friends, strengthens our doubt. As 
yet we have no clear reason for believing there was 
any feeling between Anne of Austria and Mazarin beyond 
that affectionate friendship and perfect mutual understand- 
ing which naturally grows up out of the necessity of 
sharing daily duties. 

Now Mazarin, who had spent many months in close 
intercourse with Louis XIII and Richelieu, knew how the 
King had hated Mme. de Chevreuse. In his own hand 
we shall find, in later days — and how much more richly 
deserved — the very same complaints against the Duchess ! 
Mme. de Chevreuse could not reckon on any goodwill on 
the part of the new Minister. Luckily for her, Mazarin's 
nature was neither adamant, like that of the dead 
Cardinal, nor inexorable, like that of the late King. A 
foreigner, with few friends, and little prestige, his cue was 
to wear his adversaries out instead of breaking them down, 
like his mighty predecessor; he must be supple, conciliat- 
ing. He has been accused of cowardice : Ritz wrote of 
him: "On the steps of the throne, whence Richelieu, the 
harsh and terrible, had crushed, rather than ruled, the 
human race, we saw a successor who was gentle, mild, who 
asked for nothing, who was grieved to the heart because 
his dignity forbade him to humble himself in the sight of 
all men, as he would fain have done ! " The Minister's 
foes were to turn his weakness and lack of energy to the 
best advantage. The first to benefit by them was Mme. 
de Chevreuse. 

The dawn of the Regency was full of promise. This 
time the reaction which had failed to appear when Riche- 
lieu died was really taking place. Anne of Austria was 
said to be very kind-hearted. The Queen and Mazarin, 
not feeling strong enough to stand against the reaction, 
began to give way. "All those who had been beyond 

230 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

the frontiers of the kingdom," writes Lenet, "came back, 
one after the other, and at that poor Prince's funeral 
(Louis XIII), we beheld all the people who had been 
banished, hung, broken on the wheel, beheaded, or thrown 
into prison ! " In the eyes of the public the Government 
of the Regency seemed a Government of reparation. 
The victims of the previous reign were all hurrying back. 
Mme. de Chevreuse was quite sure she might come back 
too! 

But her dignity demanded that she should not do it too 
quickly. Now that her old friend Anne of Austria, whose 
sorrows she had shared for so many years, either as con- 
fidant or accomplice, for whom she had suffered so much, 
and endured all the severities of her long exile, was 
sovereign mistress of the realm, she owed her a brilliant 
reception, at least ! Who, as Mme. de Motteville puts it, 
"had reigned" like her "in the Queen's heart, and through 
all her disgrace had kept up her intercourse with her, and 
had appeared to possess her friendship more completely ? " 
But Mme. de Chevreuse was deceiving herself. 

Towards the end of the life of Louis XIII the Queen's 
feelings for Mme. de Chevreuse had undergone a change. 
Was it as a matter of prudence that she began, in Riche- 
lieu's presence, to express hostility to the Duchess? Once 
already she had refused, and in somewhat scornful 
language, to accept a letter from her friend. On July 28, 
1642, Chavigny wrote to Richelieu : "The Queen has care- 
fully inquired from me whether it is true that Mme. de 
Chevreuse is coming back, and has intimated to me that 
she would be grieved to see her shortly in France again, 
that she knew her for what she really was, and com- 
manded me to beg your Eminence from her, if you desire 
to do something for Mme. de Chevreuse, to do it without 
allowing her to return to France. I assured Her Majesty 
she should have satisfaction on this head." And again on 
August 12 : "The Queen protests that not only will she 

231 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

not permit Mme. de Chevreuse to come near her, but that 
she is resolved, as on her own salvation, never again to 
allow any person to say one word to her against her duty." 
Was the Cinq-Mars business, in which Mme. de Chevreuse 
was suspected of having had a hand, and thus, possibly, the 
Queen as well, the cause of these prudent assertions ? That 
may have been, but far more probably Anne of Austria, 
as she grew older, as her experience widened and her 
intelligence matured, was beginning to realize the frivolity 
and inconsistency of character of the woman who had led 
her to play parts so unworthy of herself. She came to the 
conclusion that the influence exercised over her had been 
disastrous, and made up her mind to free herself from it. 

When, after the death of Louis XIII, she took up the 
reins of power, her anxiety as to her responsibilities, the 
gravity of mind resulting from the habit of exercising 
power, a clearer appreciation of real political necessities, 
strengthened feelings which had already taken firm root 
in her heart. Mme. de Chevreuse found her former crony 
had become a Princess to whom her return to France 
was no more welcome than to Richelieu or Louis XIII : 
and in this feeling she was approved and encouraged by 
Mazarin. 

Amongst the friends of the Duchess, Marsillac— la 
Rochefoucauld — was the first to realize the change in the 
Queen's views. He had remarked the coldness of the 
Regent's manner whenever Mme. de Chevreuse was men- 
tioned to her. He tried to obtain an explanation, and 
Anne of Austria made no difficulty about declaring to him 
that she still regarded the Duchess with affection, but that 
after the late King's express orders that she should not 
be allowed to return to France, she found it very difficult 
to grant her permission to do so. And, she added, with 
some hesitation, that "as she (the Queen) had no taste 
now for the amusements that had bound them together in 
their youth, she feared she might appear changed to her." 

232 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

Much astonished, La Rochefoucauld argued the question. 
In the course of the conversation, Anne of Austria went so 
far as to say "that she knew by her own experience how 
well able Mme. de Chevreuse was to disturb the repose of 
her Regency " ; that she was sure to plot against Mazarin 
just as she had plotted against Richelieu, that she would 
make endless difficulties for the Government. La Roche- 
foucauld tried to defend his friend : he pleaded her cause 
eagerly. "I pointed out to her," he writes, "what con- 
fusion and surprise so unexpected a change would cause 
in the public mind and among her own old servants, when 
they saw her first marks of severity fall on Mme. de 
Chevreuse. I set forth the fidelity of her attachment to 
her, and the long duration of the misfortunes it had entailed 
on her; I besought her to consider the levity of which she 
herself would be thought capable, and the interpretation 
that would be put on that levity. The conversation was 
long and stormy." There was something in the arguments 
put before her, and Anne of Austria was sorely perplexed. 
If everybody else was to come back, how could she, indeed, 
keep out Mme. de Chevreuse, whose former friendship with 
the Regent was a matter of common knowledge ? " Ah ! " 
cried the poor Queen to one of her ladies, Mme. de Fruges, 
"I was much happier at Saint-Germain, where I had 
nothing to do with State affairs, for I understand nothing 
about governing, and yet govern I must ! Still, I trust to 
God to help me, since He has given me good intentions, 
and a very well-disposed Minister, full of wisdom and 
impartiality." 

Just at that moment the position of that same Minister 
was beginning to cause her serious alarm. A most 
threatening opposition was rising up against him. The 
Due de Vendome's son, Francois, Due de Beaufort, a 
young fellow of eight-and-twenty, presumptuous, thought- 
less, passionate, was attacking him fiercely. Thanks to the 
name he bore, and the power and splendour of his family, 

233 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

he had succeeded in gathering a dangerous group of 
partisans about him. Anne of Austria grew anxious. 
The friends of Mme. de Chevreuse toolv advantage of the 
situation to point out to the Queen, and to Mazarin, that 
there was a method of counterbalancing the too great 
influence wielded by the Vendome Princes — -this was to 
use the Guise-Lorraine Princes against them. Now, 
through Mme. de Chevreuse, the Regent might lay her 
hand on these ! Let her bring back the Duchess, and she 
would stand by the Government. Thus, the return of the 
exile was becoming a political necessity. Anne of Austria 
wavered, she knew not what to do. 

At all events she would write to Mme. de Chevreuse. 
She advised her, vaguely, to live, when she did come back 
to Paris, "in good understanding" with the Cardinal. 
Mazarin, on his part, sent Lord Montague with a some- 
what clumsy offer to the Duchess of any sum of money she 
might need to pay off her debts. " He hoped there would 
be a close friendship between her and him." Here was 
a change, indeed, and more — these were advances ! Mme. 
de Chevreuse felt some surprise. She had been informed 
that neither the Regent nor the Cardinal had at first been 
favourably disposed towards her. This sudden right-about 
filled her with satisfaction, but it puzzled her, too. So 
they wanted to make use of her ! On the other hand, she 
had been warned not to trust the Cardinal: her friends, 
she had been told, had already declared themselves against 
the Minister : she must not leave them in the lurch. And 
besides, Mazarin was certainly playing some deceitful 
game : he was on the best terms with Richelieu's family, 
and the Duchess loathed them all. Alexandre de Campion, 
who was still her close friend, advised her to decide 
nothing, to wait, to see for herself: "The advice I take 
the liberty of giving you on this subject," he wrote, "is 
that you should make no final decision till you have seen 
the Queen, according to whose feelings you will have the 

234 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

joy of guiding your conduct." On this advice Mme. de 
Chevreuse resolved to act. 

She now had virtual leave to return to Paris. She 
begged Alexandre de Campion to come as far as P^ronne 
to meet her, desired La Rochefoucauld to join her at Roye, 
and then, Boispill6, the faithful steward, having brought 
her all she wanted for her journey, she set out. 

She left Brussels on June 6, 1643. Her coach was 
followed by twenty more, filled with ladies and gentlemen, 
Spaniards and Flemings, who desired to do her honour 
by attending her a few leagues on her way. She reached 
Mons, where she traversed the lines of the Spanish army. 
Passing through Cond6, on the 9th, she arrived at 
Cambrai. By Mazarin's orders she was received at every 
halt with the greatest respect. Governors of castles and 
governors of towns went to meet her a league outside each 
fortress, and attended her for another league beyond it. 
Monsieur d'Hocquincourt, who had gone to receive her on 
the frontier, conducted her to P6ronne; here the Due de 
Chaulnes and his Duchess entertained her splendidly. 
Thence Mme. de Chevreuse travelled to Roye, where she 
found La Rochefoucauld waiting for her, and likewise 
Montague, sent once again by Mazarin to make her "all 
the advances which might draw her into his friendship 
and his interests." She and La Rochefoucauld held a long 
conference. He warned her that she would find great 
changes at Court : he advised her to follow the Queen's 
lead, to get herself into the Cardinal's good books, to accept 
any offers he might make her, if she wished them to be 
continued. Mazarin, he declared, was not guilty of any 
crime : he had had nothing to do with the violent measures 
taken by Richelieu : he was almost the only man who 
knew anything about foreign politics. As for thinking 
she would lead the Queen as she had done in old times, 
she must put that idea out of her head. "Mme. de Chev- 
reuse," writes La Rochefoucauld, "assured me she was 

235 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

resolved to follow my advice in every particular." Her 
counsellor had perhaps made her realize that what he said 
to her was said in the Queen's name. 

From Roye, on the 13th, Mme. de Chevreuse went to 
Versine. On the 14th, ten years after she had left the city, 
she was in Paris ! Her return took the proportions of an 
event I Everybody talked about it. Crowds of people 
went to the house in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre to 
greet the Duchess. In the Gazette we read : "The great 
procession of continual visitors from the Court, which 
makes the great spaces of her hotel seem all too small, does 
not fill any of us with so deep an admiration as the remark 
made that the fatigues of her long journeys, and the effects 
of the severity of her fortunes have not brought about the 
smallest change in her natural magnanimity, nor, which is 
still more extraordinary, in her beauty ! " Mazarin's per- 
mission for the insertion of this notice in the "official" 
newspaper of that period proves the importance he attached 
to the co-operation of the Duchess. He stood in need of it ! 

The struggle between the Cardinal and the Beaufort- 
Vendome party had, in fact, taken evident shape. On 
each side the adversaries were reckoning on help from 
Mme. de Chevreuse. "The Court was so divided," says 
La Rochefoucauld, "that the return of Mme. de Chevreuse 
was being waited for to decide everything : she was not 
looked on as a person who would be satisfied with support- 
ing one side, but as one who would certainly destroy 
w'hichever side was the least connected with her." The 
Duchess estimated her own power very highly. In spite 
of the counsels given her by La Rochefoucauld, she w-as 
persuaded that once she was back with the Queen she 
would recover her former influence, be told all about public 
affairs, and called on to give her advice. These pretensions 
disturbed Anne of Austria's mind. And further, "not 
knowing," as d'Estr6es tells us, "what engagements the 
Duchess might still be under to the Spaniards, from whose 

236 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

company she was so lately come," the Regent was quite 
determined to maintain the greatest reserve in her dealings 
with her former friend. 

Wherefore, when Mme. de Chevreuse went to the Louvre 
to pay her duty to her sovereign, she had a most chilly 
reception. La Chatre tells us that after a few civil words, 
Anne of Austria, looking somewhat uncomfortable, ex- 
plained to the Duchess that "the allies of France might 
become suspicious if they knew her to be with her so soon 
after her return from Flanders, and that for this reason 
she must take a little journey into the country " — to 
Dampierre ! The Duchess was amazed. After a certain 
amount of hesitation she replied that she was ready to 
obey, "but that she besought the Queen to recollect that 
the whole of Europe knew she had been persecuted for her 
love of Her Majesty, and that she would perhaps be doing 
herself an injury if she sent her away so quickly " ; she 
entreated the Queen to ask the opinion of the Cardinal, 
who was present. Mazarin, thus tackled, did not dare to 
advise the Queen to persist. 

This first meeting had been unsatisfactory. As a matter 
of fact, the two ladies hardly recognized each other. Mme. 
de Chevreuse "no longer found the Queen as she had 
left her; and as a consequence of this change the Queen, 
on her side, no longer found in her the charms which had 
delighted her in former days." After a period of dissimula- 
tion, Mme. de Chevreuse declared herself openly against 
Mazarin. The plot was thickening! 

She put herself into communication with the Beaufort 
party, and was soon informed of all that party's interests 
and ambitions. Greatly distressed, Mazarin went to her, 
questioned her : what did she really want ? He was ready 
to do anything to be agreeable to her ! Would she like 
20,000 francs? Or 200,000? Mme. de Chevreuse refused; 
she held forth about the complaints and claims of her 
friends : the Due de Vendome wanted the Admiralty and 

237 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

the Governorship of Brittany, which RicheUeu had taken 
from him; the Due d'Epernon wanted to be reinstated in 
his offices; M. de Marsillac wanted to be Governor of the 
Havre. But all these demands were dangerous, expostu- 
lated Mazarin : to give away the governship of the Havre 
he must take it from Richelieu's heirs; to please Vendome 
he would have to make the Due de Breze, another of the 
late Cardinal's relations, resign the Admiralty. Well, he 
would do his best ! And Brienne, who carried out the 
negotiations, did attain a measure of success. Then Mme. 
de Chevreuse demanded the release of Chateauneuf, and 
his appointment to the Ministry. This time Mazarin gave 
her a flat refusal : nothing would induce him to consent 
to Chateauneuf 's return. " He plainly showed the Queen," 
says Goulas, "the inconveniences to which she would 
expose herself if she summoned Chateauneuf to the Council 
Board." 

Then Mme. de Chevreuse, emboldened by Mazarin 's 
apparent humility, and by the concessions she had already 
obtained, took a high tone. She grew impatient : she 
ventured to speak to the Queen, "complaining of the 
Cardinal, and expressing herself in terms which led the 
Regent to suspect she had come back persuaded she 
still had full power over her mind." Anne of Austria was 
much displeased. She, too, was resolved Chateauneuf 
should not come back. There was thunder in the air ! 
Mazarin, like his predecessor, was sick and tired of the 
the Duchess. "You are most happy!" he said, later, to 
the Spanish Minister, Don Luis de Haro. "In your 
country, as in all others, you have two sorts of women, an 
abundance of coquettes, and very few good women : the 
first think of nothing but pleasing their lovers, the second 
of nothing but pleasing their husbands ; in both cases 
their only ambition is for luxury and vanity. But our 
women, on the contrary, whether they be prudes or light 
women, old or young, clever or fools, all want to interfere 

238 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

in everything ! An honest woman would not sleep with 
her husband, nor a loose one with her lover, unless he had 
first told her something about the affairs of the State. 
They must know everything, see everything, be told every- 
thing, and what is worse, they must do everything and 
muddle everything. We have some here who daily throw 
us into a greater confusion than ever there was in 
Babylon ! " 

The reason for which Mme. de Chevreuse insisted so 
much on Chateauneuf's return was not only on account of 
the personal interests of her accomplices : she had certain 
theories as to general politics which she proposed to realize, 
thanks to the return to power of the former Keeper of the 
Seals. Now these theories were neither more nor less than 
peace at any price with Spain, and a reconciliation with 
the House of Austria — in other words, a complete reversal 
of the policy of Richelieu. 

Chateauneuf, after his ten years of vegetation in his 
prison at Angouleme — whence, on March 23, 1643, he had 
written to Chavigny concerning his great longing to 
"leave the rough and miserable condition in which he was 
kept there, at an advanced age, and full of sicknesses which 
left him no peace," had been set at liberty early in the 
Regency, and allowed to live in his own house at Mont- 
rouge, near Paris : he kept very quiet indeed. 

Mme. de Chevreuse opened her campaign. She began 
by praising the former Minister's qualities to the Queen : 
she talked about his "lengthened business experience; he 
was firm and decided," she declared; "he cared for the 
State, and was more fitted than any other man to re-estab- 
lish the old form of government, the destruction of which 
Cardinal de Richelieu had begun." Anne of Austria gave 
her evasive answers. By this time she was deliberately 
putting aside whatever Mme. de Chevreuse asked her to 
do, while Mazarin amused the lady "with submissive and 
flattering words." Mme. de Chevreuse lost her patience. 

239 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

"Nothing," she said over and over again, "was being 
done for her nor for her friends, and the Cardinal's power 
was growing greater every day." The civilities Mazarin 
heaped on her were nothing but "artifices." She made 
noisy complaints. "She expressed her dissatisfaction to 
the Queen," writes La Rochefoucauld, "and with her 
complaints she always mingled something sharp and 
scornful about the Cardinal's personal weaknesses." She 
certainly had immense confidence in her own strength. 

This strength had its root in the power her friends of 
the Beaufort- Vendome party claimed to possess. The 
members of this party were derisively nicknamed "The 
Importants." They thought themselves masters of the 
position. But a very strong opposition was rising up 
against them. When Mme. de Chevreuse had demanded 
the recall of Chateauneuf, the Princesse de Conde, by birth 
a Montmorency, who had never forgiven the former Keeper 
of the Seals his death-sentence on her brother, the Due 
Henri de Montmorency, at whose trial he had presided, had 
made a fierce attack on the Duchess and her partisans. Her 
daughter, the brilliant Duchesse de Longueville, who was 
to play so active a part in the intrigues of the Fronde, 
shared her mother's indignation. Mazarin was overjoyed : 
here were allies ! The Conde family poured out the vials 
of its wrath on Mme. de Chevreuse : its members com- 
plained of her to the Queen ; she was an intriguing 
woman, they cried, as dangerous to the Regent as she 
had been to the late King, a criminal ! Willingly enough, 
Anne of Austria listened. She was realizing the extent 
of the justification for the late King's hatred of Mme. de 
Chevreuse, and the necessity for the measures he had 
taken respecting her. 

Informed as to the Government's arrangements, or 
ignorant of them, we know not which, Mme. de Chevreuse, 
either as a deliberate move in her tactics, or out of sheer 
imprudence, made herself twice as troublesome as before. 

240 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

In June and July, Mazarin set down in his notebooks that, 
thanks to her, the Vendome party was gaining adherents : 
she had brought over the Due de Guise, who liad consented 
to act as mediator in the hope of attracting the Due 
d'Elbeuf. The Cardinal had also been warned that the 
Duchess was preparing the way for the realization of her 
projects, and to that end was thinking of buying an island 
on the Breton coast, where she might find a refuge in case 
of danger : she was actually negotiating with Mme. 
d'Asserac for the purchase of Belle-lie; Campion was to 
be governor of the island; she was to proceed there with 
her lover, Don Antonio Sarmiento; with the Vendome 
Princes masters of the iVdmiralty and of Brittany, Belle-tie 
would be a safe resort. Mazarin was resolved to put a stop 
at all costs to these arrangements. His notebooks prove 
him to have been very much taken up, at this moment, by 
the Duchess's behaviour : he mentions her constantly, 
notes her smallest actions, grows angry, breaks out into 
expressions of rage and impatience: "We must get rid 
of this Chevreuse, who sets up a thousand plots ! " he says. 
"This woman will be the ruin of France ! All this will 
grow worse and worse as time goes on, till at last there 
will be no possibility of curing it ! " But what was to be 
done? At one moment the Cardinal, thoroughly dis- 
heartened, thought of giving up the struggle, and leaving 
France himself. But circumstances were leading up to 
a crisis that was to give him a chance of using strong 
measures, and the difBculty was thus to be solved. 

Court life had begun again, more brilliant than ever : 
banquets and festive gatherings followed one upon the 
other in quick succession, all of them crowded with numer- 
ous and busy guests, frivolous enough as far as their out- 
ward appearance went, but whose passions, well alight, 
were none the less smouldering only just below the sur- 
face. The hatred between the Duchess and the Conde 
family grew deeper every day. The most trivial incident 
R 241 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

might cause a scene at any moment. The incident did 
crop up, thanks to Mme. de Montbazon, step-mother of 
Mme. de Chevreuse. 

Madame de Montbazon was then a woman of thirty- 
three. Tall, well-proportioned, flexible in figure, with a 
bosom, so Mme. de Motteville used to say, "modelled like 
that the most gifted sculptors shew us as having been 
possessed by the ancient Greek and Roman beauties " ; 
"fine-looking, of a noble stature and an exquisite carriage," 
adds Goulas — Mme. de Montbazon was one of the most 
admired beauties of the Court, She was not reckoned 
intelligent, it is true — she was vain, haughty, full of dis- 
dain ; but she had "a free and bold manner which was 
natural to her," and which was considered most attractive. 
Very much sought after, a great coquette, many men had 
fallen in love with her, and she had been kind to them all. 
"Never," says Retz, "was there a woman of so easy-going 
a composition. ... I never saw anybody who, in the 
midst of vice, had preserved so little respect for virtue." 
She had lived with Gaston d'Orl6ans, she had lived with 
her own husband's son-in-law, the Due de Chevreuse : at 
that moment she w^as living with Beaufort. 

Exceedingly intimate with Mme. de Chevreuse, her 
senior by ten years, the Duchesse de Montbazon, for Beau- 
fort's sake, was one of her step-daughter's most eager 
partisans. No other was so aggressive, nor so quarrel- 
some. It was in her house that the incident took place. 

One day in August, 1643, not being very well, she was 
receiving her friends in her bedroom. A number of people 
had come to see her, and amongst them Comte Maurice 
de Coligny. Some anonymous letters of a passionate 
nature, written in a feminine hand, and filled with 
reproaches, threats of rupture, and expressions of a tender 
and melancholy affection, fell out of thiS' gentleman's 
pocket, and were picked up in the room. M. de Coligny 
was believed to be the lover of INIme. de Longueville, and 

242 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

Mme. de Montbazon concluded these love-letters had come 
from the Due de Conde's fascinating sister : this was per- 
fectly untrue. They were proved, at a later period, to 
have been written by Mme. de Fouquerolles, and addressed 
to M. de Maulevrier. Beaufort published the incident 
abroad : he carried the story from house to house, there was 
a world of talk about it. The Conde family rose up in 
wrath, protested fiercely against the calumny, accused 
Mme. de Montbazon and Mme. de Chevreuse of having 
slandered a member of their house. Anne of Austria, 
thoroughly annoyed, sent for the letters, showed them to 
Mme. de Longueville's friends, convinced herself they had 
not been written by the Duchess, and caused them to be 
burnt. She forced Mme. de Montbazon to apologize, and 
formal communications of the most curt and chilly kind 
were exchanged between the ladies — somewhat stiff on 
Mme. de jMontbazon's side, and haughty on that of the 
Conde Princess. 

Now very shortly after this episode, Mme. de Chevreuse 
was to entertain the Queen at a "collation " — an afternoon 
lunch — in an exceedingly fashionable garden, which a man 
of the name of Renard had planted at one end of the 
Tuileries, and made, as Guy Joly tells us, "a delightful 
retreat, where people of the highest quality went to divert 
themselves." Mme. de Montbazon was of the party, and 
helped her step-daughter to do the honours. Anne of 
Austria arrived, accompanied by the Princesse de Conde, 
who had only consented to go with the Queen because she 
had been assured Mme. de Montbazon was ill and would 
not be present at the gathering. When she saw the 
Duchess she would herself have retired, but Anne of 
Austria begged her to remain. Pressed by the Princess, 
the Queen sent a message requesting Mme. de Montbazon 
would be good enough to help her out of the difficulty by 
taking her departure. This Mme. de ^Montbazon refused 
to do. In great displeasure, the Queen took her leave, and 

243 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

a large proportion of the lady guests followed her example : 
there was a regular scandal. 

Great was the perturbation that ensued ! The affront 
had been a public one ! All the " Importants " took sides 
with Mme. de Montbazon and Mme. de Chevreuse. Anne 
of Austria commanded Mme. de Montbazon to go into 
exile at the Castle of Rochefort-en-Y valine, which belonged 
to her husband. This piece of severity made matters worse. 
Excitement reached the boiling-point, and the most excited 
person of all was Beaufort. Bold, "clumsy-minded and 
false, with an intelligence much below the average " (thus 
does Retz describe him), Beaufort was "an uncivil man," 
with "coarse manners, an envious creature, spiteful and 
unreliable." The members of the cabal poured forth 
threats innumerable. The sole responsibility for every- 
thing that had happened was cast on Mazarin, and the 
whole attack was levelled at him. Secret meetings took 
place at the Hotel de Guise : Beaufort, the Guise Princes, 
a certain M. de Beaupuis, son of the Comte de Maille, 
the two Campion brothers, Henri and Alexandre, attended 
them. A spy named Carre, a Dominican monk, who had 
bombarded Richelieu with his reports, in the Cardinal's 
lifetime, kept Mazarin informed. 

The outcome of all these secret councils was a deliberate 
plan to carry Mazarin ofi and put him to death. From 
what Henri de Campion says in his Memoirs, the idea of 
this attempt appears to have originated with Mme. de 
Chevreuse : she mentioned it to Beaufort, he agreed to her 
proposal, and then secured the assistance of Beaupuis and 
Alexandre de Campion. The theory the Duchess put for- 
ward was that Mazarin was re-establishing Richelieu's old 
tyranny in a more autocratic and merciless form, and that 
the only way to get the better of the Minister was to take 
his life. When Alexandre de Campion had 'promised his 
adhesion, an attempt was made to secure that of his brother 
Henri. He refused : he simply was being asked, he 

244 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

pointed out, to commit a murder : it was a vengeance taken 
on Mazarin for Richelieu's violent measures: they were 
jealous of Mazarin. Seeing how Henri held out, Beaufort 
and Alexandre began to hesitate. Mme. de Chevreuse 
raised their drooping spirits. Henri ended by giving in, 
on condition the Cardinal's life was not attempted, and 
he himself should not be expected to do anything except 
defend Beaufort in case of necessity. The other con- 
spirators pretended to accept his terms. Beaufort also 
enlisted the services of the captain of his guard, De Lie, 
his equerry, Brillet, and a few resolute fellows — Ganseville, 
H^ricourt, and Avancourt. 

All the details were planned out. Some evening, when 
the Cardinal, as was his wont, drove out of the Hotel de 
Cloves, attended by a mere handful of lackeys — five or 
six at most — and some churchman or other, the coach was 
to be attacked. Servants posted in all the neighbouring 
taverns were to watch and give the signal. The con- 
spirators would crowd round the coach in one of the small, 
narrow, ill-lighted, deserted streets that lay round the 
King's palace; Brillet and Ganseville were to stop the 
horses, H^ricourt and Avancourt were to open the coach- 
doors and strike, Beaufort and the rest, who would stay 
behind it on their horses, were to prevent any interference 
from outsiders. Once the work was done, everybody was 
to make himself scarce. Mme. de Chevreuse was to remain 
at Court, to appease the Queen's rage, and try to bring 
about a reconciliation between her and Beaufort — a strange 
fancy, for "this Duchess," as Campion writes, "was but 
little able, at that moment, to do anything for her friends' 
advantage ! " Retz scoffs at the whole plot, which, he 
asserts, was invented "by four or five melancholy wights 
who looked as if their brains were of the shallowest ! A 
cabal," he adds, "got up by people who all died mad! " 
Some contemporary authorities deny its existence: but 
Campion's Memoirs leave us in no doubt as to that. 

245 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Mazarin's notebooks, too, prove him to have had vague 
information about it, though all its details did not reach 
him. 

For a moment the conspirators thought they would be 
able to execute their plan outside Paris. It was announced 
that the Cardinal intended to make an excursion to La 
Barre, a property belonging to Mme. de Vigean, at the 
mouth of the Montmorency valley : in this case it would 
have been easy to attack him in the open fields. Unfortun- 
ately, Mazarin took the Comte d'Harcourt with him on a 
journey into Lorraine : the assassins would have been 
obliged to kill him too, and he was related to Mme. de 
Chevreuse; the idea was relinquished. Another time the 
Cardinal was to go to Maisons, but the Due d'Orleans went 
with him : again the plotters had to defer their attempt. 
The least eager among them, such as Henri de Campion, 
began to waver again. If no opportunity for doing the 
deed offered itself, they said, it surely was because the hand 
of God was against them ! Beaufort, too, vain and change- 
able as ever, grew unsettled in his mind. Mme. de Chev- 
reuse resolved to put an end to all these hesitations. 

She settled that Mazarin was to be attacked at night, 
on his way to the Louvre. She took all her precautions. 
The Colonel's company of the Guard was on duty at the 
palace, and she arranged that the commanding officer, the 
Due d'Epernon, should order his men not to budge, what- 
ever noise they might hear, and simply to see the palace 
doors were kept shut. The date fixed was August 30. 
On that evening the accomplices were to meet at the tavern 
of "The Two Angels" on the Quai du Louvre, after sun- 
set. They all assembled at the appointed hour. But the 
sight of eight or ten horses, saddled and bridled, at the 
door of an inn close to the King's palace was remarked, 
and with surprise. The matter was mentioned to Anne 
of Austria, who warned the Cardinal. That night he 
never left his house. 

246 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

At dawn next morning the incident was noised about the 
Court. What was the meaning of those horses and riders 
all clustered together so close to the Louvre? There was 
only one possible explanation : Mazarin was to have been 
attacked. With one consent Beaufort and his friends were 
accused of having plotted to kill the Cardinal. Feeling ran 
high : the Government was forced into taking strong 
measures. A Council was called, at which the Due 
d'Orl^ans, the Prince de Cond^, the Ministers, were all 
present. The proofs were in jN'Iazarin's hands, and it was 
settled that Beaufort must be arrested. 

That very day, September i, Beaufort attended an enter- 
tainment given by the Comte de Chavigny, Governor of 
Vincennes, in the Queen's honour. Mazarin was not pre- 
sent. Anne of Austria treated the Duke with the most 
distant coldness. His friends warned him to be careful. 
He only shrugged his shoulders. The next day, heedless 
as ever, he presented himself at the Louvre : M. de Guitaut, 
Captain of the Guard, arrested him, took him to Vin- 
cennes, and left him in confinement there : the whole thing 
was done in the quietest manner. 

The measure, as may be imagined, produced a deep 
impression. "This severe blow," writes Retz, "delivered 
at a time when authority had been so gently wielded 
as to be well-nigh imperceptible, made a great stir." 
Terrified, the conspirators fled, and took refuge with 
Beaufort's father, the Due de Vendome, at Anet; he wel- 
comed them, concealed them, and said he would protect 
them. 

Meanwhile, Mme. de Chevreuse, in her house in the 
Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, was more than anxious, and 
asked herself what her own fate was to be ? 

Anne of Austria thought it better to proceed with 
caution. She would wait a little, some five or six weeks, 
and then she would send the Duchess into exile, and do it in 
a somewhat ceremonious way, telling her it was necessary 

247 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

she should retire from Court for a time. "She would 
advise her to live contentedly in France, not to mix herself 
up in any intrigue, to enjoy, under her Regency, the repose 
she had not been able to obtain in the late King's time ; 
she would point out that it was time for her to find pleasure 
in a life of retirement, and to order her existence according 
to thoughts of the next world, and she would assure her of 
her own friendship for her, under these conditions." 
When, in the month of October, the Queen made up her 
mind to speak to Mme. de Chevreuse after this fashion, 
that lady received what she called "these remonstrances 
and counsels," in a very rebellious spirit. She forced 
Anne of Austria to lay her formal commands on her. The 
Duchess received orders to retire to Dampierre, and thence 
to Couzi^res. She was granted a sum of 200,000 livres, 
and she had to do as she was told. 

She departed : she went to Dampierre. Her exile seemed 
to give universal satisfaction. "The Sieur de I'Estrade," 
wrote Gaudin to Servien, a Secretary of State, on October 
31, "has complimented Her Majesty in the name of the 
Prince of Orange, on the departure of Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, saying that by this action the Queen has demon- 
strated her good intentions with regard to her considera- 
tion for her allies : for immediately on her arrival, the 
said lady had proposed peace to her on very easy terms, 
and that the Spaniards would very willingly give up 
everything France had taken from them, if they were 
granted only one thing- — which was, to abandon the 
Swedes and the Dutch." 

Under the Regency, as in the days of Louis XHI, Mme. 
de Chevreuse was never to give the Government a moment's 
peace. 

When she reached Dampierre she begged Alexandre de 
Campion to come and join her there secretly, travelling 
at night. " I could not desire any greater consolation in 
my misfortunes," writes Campion to her, in reply, "than 

248 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

the permission you give me to go to Dampierre. The fear 
you express lest I should be surprised on the highroads is 
most kind, but I will be so careful that this mischance will 
not overtake me. I do not travel in the daytime, and the 
nights are so dark that nobody will see me." He arrived. 
Through him Mme. de Chevreuse reckoned on reopening 
communications with all her accomplices. She organized 
the whole business; she would write to the Vendome 
Princes, to Bouillon, to Spain, to England. She put her- 
self into direct correspondence with Charles I's Ambas- 
sador, Lord Goring. According to Mazarin's notebooks. 
Goring was quite convinced that if the French Ministry 
underwent a change, and the Cardinal was dismissed, the 
friends of Mme. de Chevreuse — Spain, in other words — 
would come into power; and a peace would ensue, which 
could not be otherwise than favourable to the interests of 
English internal politics, then in a most difficult situation. 
Advised by the Duchess, those of her accomplices who had 
taken refuge at Anet crossed the frontier. Brillet and 
Henri de Campion, disguised and "wearing great beards," 
contrived to reach Holland ; Mazarin, learning this, desired 
the French Envoy to the Prince of Orange, Beringhen, to 
keep his eye upon them. Beaufort took refuge on Papal 
territory. 

From Dampierre, whether she would or not, Mme. de 
Chevreuse had been fain to take her way to Couzi^res. 
There she was to remain for many a month. She had leave 
to go to Tours; but the Government had taken measures 
to ensure her isolation. The Queen, it had been given out, 
would not look kindly on courtiers who frequented the 
Duchess. Anne of Austria personally expressed her vexa- 
tion to La Rochefoucauld, telling him how great had been 
the ingratitude displayed by Beaufort, by the " Import- 
ants," above all by Mme. de Chevreuse ; she particularly 
begged him "to have no more dealings with the Duchess, 
and to cease to be the instrument of her friends." La 

249 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Rochefoucauld, with some emotion, replied that he would 
certainly obey, but that he could not, "with justice, cease 
to be the friend of Mme. de Chevreuse, so long as she 
committed no other crime save that of being disliked by 
the Cardinal." His boldness was to involve him in 
disgrace. 

Mazarin issued orders that Couzi^res was to be watched. 
He was quite sure everything would begin again, just as 
in Richelieu's time. Things had altered strangely ! No 
longer was the Duchess plotting with Anne of Austria 
against a mighty Minister ! This time it was the Queen 
herself who was suffering from the actions of her quondam 
friend. The Regent knew right well how dangerous she 
could be, and the measures taken by her Government grew 
more and more severe. 

One of the Duchess's comptrollers, suspected of carry- 
ing her letters abroad, was seized and thrown into prison. 
An Italian physician, who had come to see her in his pro- 
fessional capacity, and on whom suspicion of having under- 
taken to carry letters for her had fallen, was arrested like- 
wise, and his arrest was carried out after a most brutal 
fashion : he was dragged out of the coach in which Mile, de 
Chevreuse and her waiting-women were seated with him. 
Police officers put their pistols to his throat, with shouts 
of "Kill ! Kill ! " and forced everybody out of the coach. 
Mme. de Chevreuse was furious. "Madame," she wrote 
the Queen from Tours, on November 20, 1644, "although 
the only good I had hoped from the withdrawal of the 
honour of your presence was to deserve that of your 
remembrance, by a continuation of the duty I paid you, I 
deprived myself of both, as soon as I became aware that 
this deprivation would be a more welcome sign of my 
obedience. But I confess that fresh one which has occurred 
within the last four or five days, by the imprisonment of 
an Italian physician who has been with me for some time, 
has touched me so nearly that I cannot believe your 

250 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

Majesty will refuse access to my just indignation : this has 
been done with a violence such as has never been seen 
before in such a matter, the occasion having been seized 
when he was in my daughter's coach, who was forced to get 
out of it, while two police officers held a pistol to her throat, 
constantly crying out * Kill ! Kill ! ' to her, and likewise 
to the women who were with her. This proceeding is so 
extraordinary that even as I reckon on your justice to give 
me satisfaction as to what I feel so keenly on account of 
my daughter's person, I dare promise myself your kind- 
ness will ensure my own future safety against such 
encounters ! " Anne of Austria sent no reply. 

Thanks to his spies, Mazarin knew every little thing the 
Duchess said and did. Through a certain nobleman, 
M. Cang6 de la Bretonni^re, he had the names of all the 
persons who frequented her society : a Mile. Galland, a 
M. de Vaumorin, who was in the service of the Due de 
Vendome, M. du Tillac, who was about the Comte de Mon-- 
tresor. To M. de Gauge's thinking, Mme. de Chevreuse 
made use of all these people for her communications with 
foreign parts, especially with England. Craft had been 
seen at Tours : he had lodged in the house of the Abbe 
de St. Julien, and had held divers conferences with the 
trusty friends of the Duchess, especially with Mile. Galland, 
with whom he had sat up talking one night, in the Abb6's 
lodging, from eleven o'clock till two in the morning. M. 
de Cang6 asserted the subject of this long interview to 
have been the escape of Beaufort. 

In Paris, continued Cange, Mme. de Chevreuse had a 
correspondent of the name of Mandat, who was in the habit 
of holding frequent conversations with the Magistrates of 
the Parliament, then carrying on a struggle with Mazarin — 
the prelude to the Fronde. A gentleman named M. de 
Moli^re had been sent to see Mme. de Chevreuse by the 
Due d'Enghien : M. de Cange had made his acquaintance, 
had made him talk, and had found out that Campion had 

251 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

been in Paris for some days, disguised as an Englishman, 
and lodged in the Hotel de Nemours. Another person who 
served Mme. de Chevreuse in connection with her private 
correspondence was a young Carmelite monk, five- or six- 
and-twenty years of age, the son of an official connected 
with the Parliament of Rennes, and a M. de Lussan, of 
Amboise, whom she was in the habit of sending to Paris, 
and who was always lodged, on these occasions, in the 
house of the Due de Chevreuse, in that of M. de Mont- 
bazon, or in that of M. de la Rochefoucauld. M. de Cang6 
would shortly "send news of their intentions in these 
quarters." 

From this and other information — though the details 
were not absolutely clear — Anne of Austria and the Car- 
dinal arrived at the conclusion that Mme. de Chevreuse 
was certainly plotting with foreign powers. If peace with 
Spain was so diflicult of attainment, if the dilatory methods 
of the Spanish Court rendered the discussion of its condi- 
tions so endlessly slow, that was surely because Mme. 
de Chevreuse was always stirring up hopes at Madrid I 
"Letters from Spain have been intercepted," writes Nani, 
the Venetian Ambassador, "which prove that the delays 
about making peace are attributable to the hopes enter- 
tained in Spain that there will soon be changes and dis- 
turbances in France." These changes and disturbances, 
he adds, were foretold by Mme. de Chevreuse and her 
friends : the Spanish Government reckoned on them, and 
was waiting for the.m. 

Thus the Duchess's love of intrigue was an incorrigible 
vice, and a never-ceasing danger to the good management 
of public affairs. Anne of Austria became extremely 
angry. She gave orders that nobody was to consort with 
Mme. de Chevreuse on any pretext whatever, on pain of 
incurring her displeasure. Her commands were obeyed. 
Little by little the Duchess found herself forsaken, every- 
body left her alone. Montr6sor tells us in his Memoirs that 

252 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

living as he did close to Tours, he watched the steady 
growth of this state of isolation. "The fact that Mme. de 
Chevreuse lived near Tours," he says, "resulted in my 
seeing her from time to time. The way in which she had 
been forsaken by all those on whom she had conferred 
obligations, and who had been bound to her by ties of 
friendship and interest, led me to judge how little reliance 
can be placed on the men of the present century, by the 
state in which I saw a person of her quality so universally 
forsaken in her disgrace, which increased my own desire 
to render her my services with all the more care and affec- 
tion, on any occasion that might present itself. The 
esteem and interest I felt for her person led me willingly 
to run the risks involved, only taking care to regulate 
them in such a manner that no one could remark them 
as being too frequent, nor any affectation about them 
on her side or my own." Thus, and in spite of his good 
will, Montresor himself was careful. He knew how angry 
the Government was. When the Queen of England came 
to France, the Regent requested her not to have anything 
to do with Mme. de Chevreuse; Henrietta-Maria, wrote 
Mazarin in his notebooks, was not to have any meetings 
with "a person who, by her bad conduct, had lost the good 
graces of Her Majesty." 

It would have been difficult, under such conditions, for 
the Government to abstain from further action, and Anne 
of Austria, seeing the plotting was still going on in 
Touraine, could hardly have failed to come to the con- 
clusion, that it was impossible for her to tolerate that 
Couzi^res should continue indefinitely to be used as a 
permanent centre of cabals against the State, carried on 
by Mme. de Chevreuse in perfect freedom. 

And, indeed, the Duchess manifested no particular sur- 
prise when, one April morning in 1645, an exempt of the 
King's Bodyguard — his name was Riquetti — appeared 
upon the scene. He came to inform her, by the Queen's 

253 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

order, that she must leave Touraine and betake herself to 
iVngouleme, there to stay in the castle, and not move 
beyond its walls, till further orders : he himself was to 
conduct her thither. Instantly Mme. de Chevreuse per- 
ceived the extent of her misfortune. This time she would 
not have the semi-freedom she had enjoyed at Couzi^res, 
she was to be shut up in the citadel at Angouleme, and 
kept under lock and key. This prospect, so Montresor 
tells us, "made such an impression on her mind that she 
resolved she would expose herself to every other peril that 
might threaten her so long as she escaped from that of 
being imprisoned, and which she thought inevitable." Her 
terrors of the year 1637 were on her again, and this time 
they were not imaginary, but most real and pressing. 

Instantly she made up her mind : she would take to flight 
once more. She asked the officer to give her a few hours 
for her preparations, and he, unsuspectingly, it may have 
been, or perhaps because he had private orders, granted her 
request. That night, with her daughter Charlotte and two 
attendants, Mme. de Chevreuse got into her coach, and 
had herself driven, by La Fleche and Laval, straight to 
St. Malo. According to the custom of that time, she took 
jewels with her, to be turned into money. When she 
reached St. Malo she went boldly to the governor of the 
fortress, a gentleman of her acquaintance, the Marquis de 
Coatquin, and asked him to help her to get over to Eng- 
land. If Richelieu had been in power, M. de Coatquin 
would have lost no time about stopping the fugitive, only 
too certain, as he would have been, that any other course 
would have brought down the thunder of the sovereign 
upon his own head. But times were changed. He sent 
down to the port, and found an English barque just sailing 
for Dartmouth ; the skipper agreed to take the passengers ; 
Mme. de Chevreuse confided her jewels to the' governor's 
care, and the boat hoisted sail and steered for the Cornish 
coast. The hull had hardly disappeared before M. de 

254 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

Coatquin, like a faithful servant of the King, began a letter 
to Mazarin, informing him of the departure of the Duchess, 
and setting forth the excellent reasons that had prevented 
him from arresting her. He deputed one of his gentlemen 
to carry the missive to the Cardinal, and give him further 
explanations by word of mouth. Mazarin's reply — it may 
have been ironically intended — ran : " I have seen, by that 
(the letter) you have been so good as to write me, the notice 
you give me that Mme. de Chevreuse has passed through. 
I have received, as I should, the proofs you give me of 
your affection for the King's service in this matter : I have 
not failed to represent everything I ought to the Queen, 
excusing what has happened by the reasons you send me, 
and those which the said gentleman has deduced." In 
Louis Xni's time, M. de Coatquin would not have got out 
of it so easily. 

Mme. de Chevreuse intended, as soon as she landed at 
Dartmouth, to ask for a passport, get to Dover, and so 
across to Dunkirk, and thence to Liege. Once there, she 
would plead her innocence to Anne of Austria and crave 
her mercy. She did not care to make a long stay in Eng- 
land. The moment was one of the most critical of the 
Revolution in that country. In the course of his struggle 
with Parliament, Charles I had taken up arms. Crom- 
well's Roundheads had beaten the King's men at Newbury 
and Marston Moor, and within a few weeks Charles was to 
undergo a crushing defeat at Naseby, and to be forced to 
take refuge with the Scots, who were ultimately to hand 
him over to his own subjects. Mme. de Chevreuse, who 
was the King's kinswoman and friend, was anxiously 
wondering what reception she herself was likely to be given 
by the Parliamentarians : she had no desire to have any 
dealings with them. Her fears were not without reasonable 
foundation. 

Hardly, in fact, had her boat come within sight of the 
English coast when two ships of war, flying the Parlia- 

255 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

merit's flag, bore down upon her. The vessel was searched. 
Mme. de Chevreuse was recognized, and the Enghsh cap- 
tains informed her they could not allow her to land ; they 
would convey her to the Isle of Wight, where she must 
await the decision of Parliament regarding her : she had 
to submit. When she reached the Isle of Wight she found 
that the Governor of the island was the Earl of Pembroke, 
with whom she had been intimately acquainted in old days, 
at the English Court. He was absent in London. She 
wrote him a letter: "Sir," she said — this was on April 29, 
1645, "my continued misfortunes having forced me to 
leave France hurriedly, so as to preserve, in a neutral 
country, the liberty of which the power of my enemies 
would have deprived me in my own, the only favourable 
means I could find to escape this ill-fortune has been to 
embark at St. Malo and cross into England, and thence 
over into Flanders, and so go to the country of Li^ge, 
whence I shall assuredly be able to justify my innocence. I 
trust to your virtue and courtesy not to refuse the supplica- 
tion I make you to entreat the gentlemen of the Parliament 
to grant me a passport to get me hence to Dover, and so 
pass over to Dunkirk, whither the wretched state of my 
affairs forces me to betake myself as soon as possible. This 
is a grace for which I hope from the justice of the gentle- 
men of the Parliament, and which they will be free to 
confer on me without delay." 

But Parliament refused. The order given was that 
Mme. de Chevreuse was not to be set at liberty. On May 
20, 1645, Gaudin writes to Servien : "Letters from Eng- 
land inform us that Mme. de Chevreuse is still in the Isle 
of Wight, that the gentlemen of the Parliament have 
refused to give her either a ship or a passport to get to 
Dunkirk." Better still, the English offered to hand the 
Duchess over to Mazarin ! The Cardinal, delighted to 
know her safely detained in the Isle of Wight, declined this 
offer. What could he have done with her? Like Riche- 

256 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

lieu, he had no wish either to shut her up or to bring her 
to trial : if he sent her to the most retired spot in the king- 
dom of France she would contrive to flee out of it ! Far 
the best thing was that she should be kept a prisoner by 
the English ! "It may be imagined," he wrote in a letter 
dated June 22, 1645, "how much Mme. de Chevreuse is 
hated, since when she was in the power of the English 
Parliamentarians they offered to hand her over to us, and 
we did not care to accept her." 

June came, and still the Duchess was in prison. She 
was in despair. She fell ill ; digestion and heart, she de- 
clared, were both seriously affected, and she was in a high 
fever. To provide herself \vith means of subsistence she 
had requested M. de Coatquin to send over her jewels, 
which were to be despatched to the care of Montresor, in 
Paris, whence a reliable man would bring them over to her. 
A Breton gentleman, M. de Chateaubriant-Beaufort, did 
convey them from St. Malo and handed them over to 
Montresor, from whose hands the person sent by the 
Duchess received them. But Mazarin, hearing of the inci- 
dent, had Montresor arrested and shut up in the Bastille. 
His house was searched, but nothing incriminating was 
found : a judicial cross-examination bore no more con- 
clusive fruit; after a fortnight's detention in the Bastille 
Montresor was transferred to Vincennes, where he spent 
fourteen months ; at last, thanks to the intervention of the 
Guises and of the Prince of Orange, he was set at liberty. 

Not knowing which way to turn, Mme. de Chevreuse 
finally addressed herself to the Spanish Ambassador. He 
expressed his willingness to come to her aid, and thanks 
to his intervention she at last obtained leave from the 
Parliament to depart from England; the Ambassador 
advanced her a sum of money — 400 jacobiises. 

She started, went to Brussels, and thence to Liege. 
Mazarin had her followed, every day he noted down the 
reports he had received about her. He could not flatter 
s 257 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

himself the Duchess would not continue her intrigues. He 
had entered into correspondence with the Duke of Lor- 
raine's sister, the Princesse de Phalsbourg, in the hope of 
using her to detach Lorraine from the Austrian cause. 
This Princess kept him informed as to the movements of 
Mme. de Chevreuse; from her he knew she was writing to 
the Duke of Lorraine to counteract the Cardinal's own 
efforts ; to Piccolomini, the Emperor's general, to enlighten 
him as to the movements of the French troops ; to the Due 
de Bouillon, to stir him up against France. His notebooks 
reveal the fact that she was abusing him in every letter she 
wrote, and working more ardently than ever in the cause 
of Spain. He even adds that it really would be very diffi- 
cult to desire greatness for France and please Mme. de 
Chevreuse at one and the same time ! How merrily had 
she gone to her ruin ! he exclaimed, she w^ho might, if she 
had chosen, have been one of the most fortunate women 
upon earth ! On September 30 he wrote that the Duchess 
served her friends in Madrid very ill when she made them 
believe there was any hope for them, and begged the 
Princesse de Phalsbourg to find out what proposals she 
really was making to the Spaniards. "We have some 
light here already," he writes, "from Liege, on the subject 
of certain proposals she has made to the Spanish Ministers 
over there." 

Thanks to a memorandum drawn up for the Archduke 
Leopold, Governor-General of the Low Countries, by a 
certain Abbe Ernest de Mercy, with the object of acquaint- 
ing the Spanish Government with the nature of the 
assistance to be expected from Mme. de Chevreuse, we 
know what these proposals were. 

At that moment Mme. de Chevreuse had a friend and 
confidant in the person of a French gentleman named 
M. de Saint-Ibal. Henry d'Escars de Saint-Bonnet, Lord of 
Saint-Ibal, was a thoughtless man, stoically brave, wanting 
in judgment, exceedingly broad-minded, independent, of 

258 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

uncertain temper, low-spirited and melancholy — thus at least 
he is described by Lenet : Saint-Evremond considered 
him simply a madman. Mme. de Chevreuse proposed to 
make a league between Spain and the Condes, the secret 
of which was to be confided to Saint-Ibal, and for the pur- 
poses of which he was to act as go-between. Conde hesi- 
tated to cast in his lot with the plotters, but only — so at 
least the French party at Brussels asserted — because he 
did not think the Spanish Ministers in the Low Countries 
set a sufficiently high value on Saint-Ibal : all they had to 
do was to come to an understanding with him. This Saint- 
Ibal was the mainspring of the whole business. Mme. de 
Chevreuse guaranteed the adhesion of d'Epernon, la 
Rochelle, the Huguenots ; they would carry off Tancred de 
Rohan, a posthumous son of Henri de Rohan, the former 
chief of the Huguenot party, and place him at the head of 
the Protestant rebellion ; let Spain have troops ready to dis- 
embark at the mouth of the Gironde : Saint-Ibal would go 
to Miinster to the Due de Longueville, and beg him to 
join the plot; Spain must give him a sum of 12,000 francs, 
and a monthly pension of 1000 francs. Thus Mazarin 
would be overthrown, and peace would be imposed on 
France ! These plans proved Mme. de Chevreuse to be 
a prey to strange illusions. 

And yet the Conde family, at that moment, seemed to 
be making a great effort to induce Anne of Austria to bring 
the war with Spain to an end. Henrietta-Maria, who had 
sought refuge in Paris, was adding her entreaties to those 
of the Princess Dowager. Had she a hope that if peace 
was restored on the Continent, France would intervene in 
English affairs, and come to the help of her unhappy 
husband in his defeat? That may well be! No stone 
that might influence Anne of Austria was left unturned. 
The nuns of the Val de Grace were entreated to speak to 
the Queen : M. Vincent (de Paul) of the Mission, the 
Oratorian priests, wefe all canvassed. 

259 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

But Mazarin, faithful to his task, was resolved to carry 
the policy bequeathed to him by Louis XIII and Richelieu 
to its logical conclusion : he was determined not to give 
in until the Spaniards accepted the consequences of the 
struggle as he foresaw them. The Venetian Ambassador, 
Nani, tells us that to protect Anne of Austria from the 
pressure put upon her he suddenly removed her out of 
Paris. 

And we have a proof that Mme. de Chevreuse had no 
very great personal confidence in the complicated and 
foolish plan she had communicated to the Abbe de Mercy 
in the fact that, at that very moment, and quite privately, 
she was making M. de Chevreuse entreat Mazarin to grant 
her his forgiveness and give her leave to return to Paris. 

True to his old-standing habit of keeping on good terms 
with the man in power, M. de Chevreuse had openly sided 
with Mazarin against the Duchess his wife. "Chevreuse 
has been to see me," writes Mazarin in his notebooks; 
"he blames his wife." The Duke had written to the 
fugitive, had endeavoured to read her a lecture, had 
addressed her in his usual good-natured strain. "I can 
have no greater consolation in the retirement to which 
necessity has reduced me, replied the Duchess on August 
23, 1647, "than that of learning that you are in good 
health, and seeing the recollection you have of me and the 
kindness you express to me : continue them, I beseech of 
you, so as to secure me my return to France, with a safety 
I have not hitherto been able to obtain there ; assuring you 
that I desire nothing so much as to be with you in peace, 
and see the affairs of our house in good condition. But I 
fear my usual evil fortune will prevent me from enjoying 
this great good." On September 24, at Namur, she 
returns to the charge : " I am well pleased when I see that 
you remember me, and should be yet more So if you could 
obtain a safe return for me to you, but I fear that happiness 
will not come to me yet awhile, I impatiently await the 

260 



THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII 

news you tell me you will send me on that head, for I am 
now in a place where there is not much comfort, seeing it 
is a frontier town ; I am much troubled, for it is only 
necessity which causes me to stop in Flanders — but to that 
I am forced to submit. It is not that I do not receive much 
politeness from the Governors of the Flemish fortresses, 
but as my aim is not to do anything for which I shall 
reasonably have cause to reproach myself, nothing but the 
necessity of which I tell you could ever keep me here." 

Neither Mazarin nor Anne of Austria were to capitulate. 
Mme. de Chevreuse could not hope to return to France. 
And indeed, how uncertain would her position there have 
been ! "The steps of the Palais Royal," wrote Guy Patin, 
"are as slippery as those of the Louvre ever were : this is a 
strange country, where there is little to be done by honest 
folk. M. de Mazarin is the chief ruler : all the rest tremble 
or bow down before the grandeur of his Cardinalship ! " 

But, happily for Mme. de Chevreuse, in France, that 
country of fickleness and change, political circumstances 
were soon to alter the face of all things, and thanks to a 
popular tumult of the most unusual kind, which was to 
shake the Cardinal's power to its foundations, and even, 
for a moment, to overthrow it altogether, she was once 
more to find a way of escape from her exile. 



c6\ 



CHAPTER IX 

AMIDST THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

The Intricacies of the Fronde — The return of Mme. de Chevreuse— An 
understanding with Mazarin — Flight of Mazarin — The majority of 
Louis XIV — The Cardinal's return — Mme. de Chevreuse goes into 
retirement — 1648-53. 

It is a singular historical fact that the duty of carrying 
forward the essentially French policy of Richelieu should 
have devolved, after the death of Louis XIII, on a 
moderately intelligent Spanish Queen, and an Italian 
Minister whose energy was not his strongest point. Anne 
of Austria and Mazarin felt their position to be a difficult 
one, and their authority suffered. Haunted by thoughts 
of the revolution in England, in which Charles I had been 
punished for his ofDposition to the will of his people by 
the loss of his throne, they strove to avoid a similar 
catastrophe by coming to an arrangement with their 
enemies. The confusion grew proportionately greater, and 
the outcome of it all was the Fronde. In the face of the 
weakness of the sovereign's authority, the Parliament of 
Paris, which was no more than a mere judicial assembly, 
sought to play the part of States-General, tried to lord it 
over the Government, cut down taxes, dismiss treasury 
officials. The only answer Anne of Austria and Mazarin 
dared make to these usurping measures took the shape 
of concessions and delays. The King's power began to 
fall into abeyance, and the autocratic reaction of the reign 
of Louis XIV gives the measure of the depths the evil 
had reached. 

Financial difficulties were at the bottom of the begin- 

262 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

nings of the struggle, but a great many other causes 
had led up to it. Parliament opposed the registering of 
fiscal edicts. The sovereign courts — Parliament, the 
Court of Accounts, the Board of Excise, the Grand 
Council — all joined together to oppose the creation of new 
posts : that was a revolutionary proceeding. They deputed 
a certain number of their members to form a common 
chamber, known as the "Chambre de St. Louis," which 
undertook to reform the kingdom : here was another 
revolutionary act — it took place in May 1648. Parliament 
would not have been so bold, but that public opinion, 
which loathed Mazarin, supported it. When the Govern- 
ment, after the Prince de Cond6 had won his brilliant 
victory at Lens, thought itself strong enough to try 
energetic measures, and arrested certain of the magistrates 
who had compromised themselves the most, such as 
Roussel, the populace, on August 27, 1648, rose up, and 
barricaded the streets. It became necessary to release the 
prisoners. Among the most fervent partisans of the 
popular cause was the coadjutor of the Archbishop of 
Paris, Paul de Gondi, afterwards Cardinal de Retz. 
After a whole succession of incidents, attempts at resist- 
ance, and conferences, Anne of Austria and Mazarin, con- 
vinced that the intrigues of the coadjutor and the flood 
of abuse poured out upon their heads in the innumerable 
pamphlets known as '' Masarinades" had rendered their 
position utterly untenable, suddenly left Paris, with the 
whole Court, in the course of the night between the 5th 
and 6th of January, 1649 : that spelt open rupture. The 
Government was about to take up arms and lay siege to 
the city. 

From Flanders, where she was living, Mme. de Chev- 
reuse attentively watched the course of events. She 
was overwhelmed with delight. With Saint-Ibal, and 
through the Abb6 de Mercy, she was inciting the Spaniards 
to increase the Regent's difficulties by moving their troops 

263 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

forward. She laid stress on the success the Spanish arms 
might expect, thanks to her own inteUigences within the 
kingdom. "It is her habit (Mme. de Chevreuse)," writes 
Mazarin, who had been duly warned, to M. de Coatquin, 
on September 16, 1648, "to talk very big about the under- 
standings she has in France, so as to make the Spaniards 
think more of her; and I know that in the last conference, 
held at Spa a few days since, between her, Saint-Ibal, the 
Abbe de Mercy and the secretary Galareta, she spoke very 
freely of the absolute power which, she declared, she had 
over you and other persons of quality within the kingdom, 
who know no more about it than you do." In the course 
of that summer of 1648, the Archduke Leopold did, in fact, 
set out for Flanders with some 25,000 or 30,000 men, to 
attack Conde. "Mme. de Chevreuse," notes the Cardinal, 
"and the other French persons who supply information 
outside this country" (Saint-Ibal and others), "assert that 
when that is done, everything will be in disorder " — Paris 
in an uproar and the whole kingdom in a state of revolu- 
tion ; but the bloody defeat at Lens was soon to prove the 
futility of the suggestions put forward by the Duchess. 

She did not lose courage. And, indeed, the subsequent 
complications caused by the Fronde were of a nature well 
calculated to raise her hopes. The news, in January 1649, 
that the Court had fled from Paris, that the city was in 
a state of insurrection, and that the King was about to be 
constrained to lay siege to his own capital, increased her 
confidence. It was the story of the League over again. 
Like Henri III, Louis XIV had been driven out of Paris. 
In the absence of States-General, the Parliament had 
assumed the responsibilities of the power reft from the 
sovereign's hand. Why should not the Spaniards offer 
their help, as they had done in the days of the League, to 
the Parisian insurgents ? Thereupon there ' arrived in 
Brussels a gentleman who was destined to play an 
important part in the rest of the life of Mme. de Chevreuse, 

264 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

and who, for the moment, was to give form to the ideas 
that bubbled in her brain. This was M. Geoff roy de 
Laigue, Baron du Plessis-Patay, and Seigneur de 
Bondoufle. 

Laigue, whose family was settled in Dauphine, a brave 
man and a fine horseman, but, so Retz affirms, "exceed- 
ingly coarse, and of the most changeable character ever 
seen, with little sense and a great deal of presumption," 
was then thirty-five years of age, the fifth son of a family 
of ten children. He had been intended for the Church, 
but this idea had been relinquished on account of his 
turbulent nature, and he had found his way to Paris, had 
obtained a company in the Gardes Frangaises, had been at 
the siege of Gravelines in 1644, during which he had been 
one of the leaders of the assault, and at the battle of Lens, 
where he had behaved with great valour. His close 
intimacy with the head of the younger branch of the la 
Tr^moille family, first Marquis and then Due de Noir- 
moutier, had attracted attention to his person. During 
the Lens campaign, the two friends, as a consequence of 
some difficulty with the Prince de Conde, and a scene 
with him which had resulted from it, had left the army 
in a fit of temper : Laigue had sold his company, and they 
had both gone back to Paris, where they had thrown 
themselves into the agitation of the Fronde. 

After the rupture between the Court and the members 
of the Fronde, Gondi, like Mme. de Chevreuse, thought 
it necessary to appeal to Spain. "A grain of Spanish 
catholicon," he said, was indispensable. Laigue offered 
the Coadjutor his services. He would go to Brussels, 
he said, he would see Mme. de Chevreuse, and through 
her he would get into communication with the Spanish 
authorities. Gondi accepted his proposal unsuspectingly. 
"I had some repugnance," he wrote in his Memoirs, "to 
sending a man of my own cloth to Brussels." Laigue had 
had himself recommended to the Coadjutor by Montr^sor. 

265 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

A strange idea now occurred to them both : this was, to 
propose to Gondi that Laigue, to win over the Duchess to 
the cause, should go to Flanders and become her lover. 
The situation was vacant. Mme. de Chevreuse was forty- 
eight, of course, but age had not destroyed the coquette 
in her; she would be flattered. The Coadjutor laughed, 
and agreed. "We told Laigue," he writes, "that he was 
to live near the Archduke." 

Laigue started. Arrived at Brussels, he began to pay 
his court to Mme. de Chevreuse. His first experiences 
were not encouraging. The Duchess acknowledged, at a 
later date, that her suitor had struck her as being an insipid 
sort of fellow, and that his dull face had reminded her 
unpleasantly of an actor at the Hotel de Bourgogne, 
Bellerose by name. But by degrees her prejudices wore 
off. She allowed herself to be conquered ; and Laigue was 
her final and her most enduring passion. 

They took their steps in unison. It was high time. 
Mazarin's blockade of Paris was drawing closer and closer; 
Saint-Cloud, Saint-Denis, Meudon had been occupied by 
the King's troops. With feverish haste the Parliament 
had raised an army, which, during an attempt to seize 
Corbeil, on January 23, 1649, took to precipitate flight. 
On February 8, Cond6, who had remained faithful to the 
Regent, attacked Charenton and took possession of the 
town, and 40,000 Parisians, who had sallied forth to repulse 
him, retired ingloriously. Haste was becoming urgent. 
Mme. de Chevreuse and Laigue asked the Archduke to 
write a letter to the Parliament offering peace : this step 
would prove that the Court of Spain was disposed to put 
an end to the war, and all the odium of its continuation 
would thus fall on Mazarin ; the Archduke complied. The 
Duchess herself chose the herald-at-arms who was to carry 
the letter — a certain Don Joseph Illesca Arnolphini. When 
this herald reached Paris, he had to wait : there was a 
difficulty about his credentials ; as a matter of fact, a great 

266 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

many of the magistrates objected to treating with 
foreigners; finally, the Parliament referred him to Anne 
of Austria; the business was a failure. 

Laieue and Mme. de Chevreuse looked about for some- 
thing else. The Archduke must be persuaded to make 
some decided move into French territory. Laigue, in 
his letters, declared he was already sure of the Archduke 
and the commander of his troops, the Conde di Fuensal- 
dagna. "I never met such a' fool!" said Gondi; "he 
thinks he can manage Fuensaldagna already ! " Noir- 
moutier, who likewise thought his friend's assertions were 
"impertinent," suggested going to Brussels himself to 
make sure of things. Retz let him go. At the bottom 
of his heart, the Coadjutor was in a difficulty. In view of 
the successive defeats suffered by the troops of the Fronde, 
the murmurs of the populace, which was greatly divided in 
opinion, and the famine which was beginning to make 
itself felt, the Parliament had resolved, on February 28, 
to attempt to reach some agreement with the Court. 
Conferences had already begun at Rueil. This was a bad 
moment for trying to get the Spaniards to interfere ! 
Gondi had written to Brussels and declined the proffered 
intervention, and Noirmoutier and Laigue had replied by 
setting forth the reasons which made the help of Spain 
so necessary. The Coadjutor had answered that these 
reasons did not meet with his approval. Early in March, 
just when the representatives of the Parliament and the 
Court were beginning to come to an understanding, Laigue 
was writing Gondi a series of despatches in cypher, in 
which he announced that the promised intervention was 
about to take effect. "The bulk of the Spanish army," he 
said, "would be at Vadencourt " (near Guise, in the Aisne) 
"on such a day; the advance-guard at Pontavert, on such 
another; it would stay there a few days, and then the 
Archduke intended to come and take up his quarters at 
Dammartin " (near Meaux). These letters threw the Coad- 

267 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

jutor into "cruel agitations": "there was not a syllable 
in them," he moaned, "that did not cause him mortal 
pain." 

Mme. de Chevreuse shared Laigue's illusions. The 
Prince de Conti, who had kept on the side of the Fronde, 
sent his equerry, de Br^quigny, to Flanders, to talk with 
the Archduke and see Mme. de Chevreuse; this lady told 
him she was just about to start for France with the Spanish 
army, 25,000 men strong. The Archduke, so Mathieu 
M0I6 tells us in his Memoirs, confided to Brequigny that 
he had hesitated a great deal before entering on this cam- 
paign, and had only made up his mind to it at last under 
pressure from Mme. de Chevreuse. 

But Mazarin had no intention of waiting for the 
Spaniards : he was hurrying on the Rueil conferences, 
and things were very nearly settled. 

Then Mme. de Chevreuse, finding this out, turned round 
again. If peace was to be concluded, thought she to 
herself, she had better give up the struggle and secure 
her own inclusion in it. Instantly she wrote to her friends, 
begging them to do their best for her. 

She applied to everybody. Through Brequigny she 
obtained the intercession of the Prince de Conti ; she 
addressed herself to her own son, the Due de Luynes, to 
her husband, who had sided with the Fronde because he 
had fancied it the strongest. They all did what they 
could. M. de Luynes, who had also adhered to the 
Parliament, and had suffered from the war — the Comte de 
Grancey, at the head of a body of the King's troops, had 
seized, and sacked, and burnt his house at L^signy — was 
formulating a whole list of claims, and inserted one with 
regard to his mother. "To bring back the Duchesse de 
Chevreuse, his mother," it ran, "with all the necessary 
provisions for her safety, so that she may go here and 
there, and live in any part of the kingdom, as it may 
please her, without being sought for on any account what- 

268 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

ever, or on any pretext of any kinci." The Prince de 
Conti, who was also sending in his claims, likewise added 
a clause touching the Duchess : "That Mme. de Chevreuse 
may return to France, and live there in complete safety 
and liberty, either at Court, or wherever else she 
may prefer." As for M. de Chevreuse, he went to Saint- 
Cloud, with the intention of making a direct appeal to the 
Regent. 

The scene has been related by Mme. de Motteville and 
by Monglat. M. de Chevreuse had reached his seventy- 
second year; he was deaf. When Anne of Austria saw 
him, she began to reproach him, at the top of her voice, 
for having kept to the rebel side, and been present on 
horseback with the insurgents, during the engagement at 
Charenton. "He replied to the Queen," writes Monglat, 
"that he was her very humble servant, but that he would 
never forsake Paris, his very good friend; that he would 
always be on that side as long as he was comfortable there ; 
and that if she desired to have him on hers, she must not 
go out of it" (the city). When the Duke had laid the 
object of his suit before her, Anne of Austria, schooled 
by Mazarin, refused his prayer : she could not, she said, 
allow the Duchesse de Chevreuse to come back into "a 
town that was still full of rebellion ; she had made a 
thousand plots against her service ; she " (the Queen) 
"could not be pleased with her, nor content with the 
submission she offered, if she did not show her a' real 
repentance of her last behaviour." M. de Chevreuse pro- 
tested that he would answer for his wife's fidelity, but the 
Queen burst out laughing : what power had he over her ? 
M. de Chevreuse said something about his daughter Char- 
lotte, who, he declared, had immensely improved in looks : 
"she had eyes that were capable of setting the whole world 
on fire." "You are too fond of beauty," said the Queen, 
with a smile; "you must begin to turn your affections on 
virtue and on Heaven ! " 

269 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Anne of Austria's refusal was only a feint. In reality, 
Mazarin had no intention of making any difficulties as to 
the Duchess, and she was to be included in the treaty 
arrangements. There was stiffer discussion about Laigue 
and Noirmoutier, to whom the Minister was not disposed 
to grant more than an abolition, considering them more 
guilty than the others, on account of their having served 
in the ranks of the Spanish army. 

Peace was concluded at Rueil on April i. Mme. de 
Chevreuse was pardoned. 

In accordance with custom, she could not return to 
France without a special permission from the Queen. She 
waited a week, ten days ; no sign ! What did this silence 
portend ? Laigue, a much humbler personage, had taken 
on himself to go back at once; the Duchess decided to 
follow his example. Quite suddenly, she left Brussels with 
her daughter Charlotte, and travelling all at a stretch — 
she drove the thirty-four leagues from Cambrai to Paris 
without any rest at all — she reached the capital towards 
eleven o'clock on the morning of April 12. 

Her unexpected arrival astonished Anne of Austria 
extremely. The Queen, so Goulas tells us, considered this 
behaviour on the part of Mme. de Chevreuse as "a low 
and most shabby proceeding." The Duchess had con- 
tented herself with writing a short letter of excuse ; the 
Queen refused to take it from the messenger. She insisted 
that Mme. de Chevreuse should leave Paris instantly, and 
at all events go as far away as Dampierre. The Duchess 
was very much mortified. She addressed herself to Mole, 
the First President of the Parliament, as though to seek 
shelter with that body, once so formidable to its opponents. 
But Mole had been won over by the Court. On April 16 
he wrote to Le Tellier, the Secretary of State, that he had 
seen Mme. de Chevreuse, and had tried to "keep her to 
her duty." Le Tellier, in reply, reiterated the order for 
her immediate departure to Dampierre, and added, threat- 

270 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

eningly : " 1 do not doubt that what you said to Mme. de 
Chevreuse, in the conversation you had with her yesterday, 
invites her, more than anything else could do, to return 
to her duty, and if she fails in that respect, I can assure 
you there are means of forcing her to do it : we have that 
in hand which will bring her to reason, without the 
smallest contradiction ! " 

When the First President failed her, the Duchess 
appealed to the Coadjutor. The matter was pressing : 
the Court had given her twenty-four hours' law. Laigue 
went and fetched Condi. "I went with Laigue to the 
Hotel de Chevreuse," writes Gondi, "and there I found 
the fair lady at her toilette, and in tears; my heart grew 
tender, and I begged Mme. de Chevreuse not to obey until 
I had had the honour of seeing her again." After various 
unsuccessful attempts, he went to the First President, and 
he says : " When I began to point out how necessary it was 
for the King's service that people's minds should not be 
embittered by any infraction of declarations of so solemn 
a nature, he stopped me short, saying, ' Enough, my good 
sir. You do not wish her to go ; she shall not go ! ' And 
he added in my ear, ' Her eyes are far too fine ! ' " This 
story does not appear to coincide with Mole's previous 
attitude, as depicted in his own letters. It is true, never- 
theless, that on the very evening before his interview with 
Gondi, the First President had written to the Court, 
deprecating any hasty action as regarded Mme. de Chev- 
reuse. Radiant, the Coadjutor took his way back to the 
Hotel de Chevreuse ; he was most warmly welcomed. 
Mile, de Chevreuse — Charlotte — made herself extremely 
charming to him. Gondi was only six-and-thirty, and, 
in spite of his cloth, made no pretence of being severely 
virtuous. The young girl's fascinating grace produced 
its effect upon him : he began by coming back often, he 
ended by coming every night; the incident, in fact, was 
to be the starting-point of a love affair with the beautiful 

271 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Mile, de Chevreuse which was not destined to be altogether 
unsuccessful. 

If the First President really did intervene, and request 
Mazarin to delay taking any severe measure as to Mme. de 
Chevreuse, he may well have relied for support on the 
argument supplied by the favour with which public opinion 
had received the Duchess. The public, in fact, had learnt 
with satisfaction that the Duchess had sought to bring aid 
to the Parisians. A few days before her return, a 
" Mazarinade " had appeared which extolled her heroic 
virtues : The French Amazon, or the Help of the 
Parisians, or the Approach of the Troops of Madame la 
Duchesse de Chevreuse, reprinted under the title of The 
Illustrious Conqueror, or the Generous Constancy of 
Madame de Chevreuse. In this work, the author vaunts 
the qualities of Marie de Rohan in poetic terms. She is 
called "the incomparable Amazon," "a flower, the hope 
of our peace, which came to our help against the oppression 
of monsters"; "a sun that seemed to rise to drive away 
the fogs which our misfortunes piled above our heads " ; 
"a delightful sunrise, appearing at the dawn of our highest 
hopes, all red with the fire of a righteous anger." The 
Queen was advised that it would be very imprudent to 
raise fresh difficulties. "It was not possible for the 
Regent," writes Jean Vallier, "whatever orders she might 
issue, to force Mme. de Chevreuse to leave Paris, nor even 
to go and await her Majesty's pleasure in her house at 
Dampierre, which is only six short leagues distant, so 
greatly was her authority diminished since she had taken 
the King away." 

The twenty-four hours Mme. de Chevreuse had been 
given were prolonged. But after a few days Anne of 
Austria, unable to endure the thought that the Duchess 
was defying her, caused her to be requested to go to 
Dampierre for a few hours, at all events, so as to save 
her own dignity. Mole undertook to suggest this. The 

272 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

Duchess consented; but she insisted on having assurances 
as to the duration of her exile. Negotiations ensued : 
Mazarin gave his word; M0I6 pledged his own that it 
should be kept. Towards the middle of July, Mme. de 
Chevreuse complied. 

But she had hardly settled at Dampierre before she 
began to ask leave to come back. The Court made no 
difficulties. "Mme. de Chevreuse," writes Le Tellier to 
Mole on July 19, "having sent to entreat the Queen to 
permit her to go wheresoever her business may call her, 
with every kind of freedom, and even to come and make 
her obeisance to Her Majesty, and having caused her to 
be assured that she will behave herself so that Her Majesty 
shall receive complete satisfaction, both these things have 
been granted unto her, and you are released from the word 
that you gave to the said lady." 

Now that Mme. de Chevreuse had been received back 
into favour, propriety demanded that she should go and 
make her obeisance to the sovereign. She fell ill, and this 
delayed the ceremony until August 8. On that day the 
Duchess and her daughter Charlotte appeared at Com- 
pi^gne, where Anne of Austria was then residing. The 
Duchess was pale and worn after her recent illness. It was 
the hour at which the Council sat, and the Regent's ante- 
chamber was crowded with courtiers. In spite of the 
promises given her, the Duchess had not come without a 
certain feeling of alarm. Le Tellier and Mole had been 
obliged to calm her by the assurance, on the Queen's word 
of honour, that there was no reason for her to have any 
fear. When she reached the Queen's presence, so Mme. 
de Motteville tells us, Anne of Austria, who had been in 
the habit of embracing her friend, failed to honour her 
with this mark of her favour. The Duchess bent low 
before the sovereign, beseeching her "to pardon all her 
past behaviour, and promising her the greatest fidelity in 
future." The Regent received these asseverations kindly, 

T 273 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

and addressed no reproaches to the supphant; but the 
friendhness of former days had utterly disappeared. Mme. 
de Chevreuse paid her duty to the young King, Louis XIV, 
then just eleven years old, spoke a few words to Mazarin, 
and retired. She had hardly passed out of the room before 
Anne of Austria remarked, quite audibly, on the change 
in her former friend's appearance: "There was hardly a 
trace of her past beauty." But everybody had admired 
Mile, de Chevreuse, "whose beauty was celebrated," adds 
Mme. de Motteville slyly, "although it was not perfect; 
so true is it that what is novel is almost always pleasing, 
and even what is not pleasing is admired in spite of 
that ! " 

Still, Mme de Chevreuse had recovered her place at 
Court. A few days later the Gazette reported: "On St. 
Augustine's day, August 28, the Queen, accompanied by 
Mademoiselle, and attended by the Duchesse de Chevreuse 
and other great ladies of the Court, went barefoot to the 
Church of St. Augustine, where Her Majesty heard evening 
prayers." On September 5 there was a great ball at the 
Hotel de Ville in honour of the King's eleventh birthday : 
the young monarch "led out Mademoiselle to dance," and 
Mile, de Chevreuse danced with the Prince de Conde. The 
past seemed forgotten, and all the old hatreds wiped out; 
but this was a mere pretence. 

Mazarin was too well acquainted with the character of 
the Duchess to believe her capable of casting off her life- 
long habit of intrigue. That being so, and considering 
the perpetually recurring political difficulties stirred by 
the half-subdued Frondeurs, he felt it better to have her 
with him than against him. On the very morrow of the 
Peace of Rueil, he had sent Charles de Mouchy, Marquis 
d'Hocquincourt, Governor of Peronne, tO' propose an 
understanding between himself and the Duchess. Mme. 
de Chevreuse, delighted, had raised no objection. When 

274 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

she came back to Paris, d'Hocquincourt had waited upon 
her again. There had been fresh parleying, not very 
definite, and it was the existence of these negotiations, 
more than the intervention of Mole and Gondi, which had 
ensured the comparative gentleness with which Mme. de 
Chevreuse had been treated by the Court. Through the 
Duchess, Mazarin hoped to reach the leaders of what was 
known as the Old Fronde, the great men of the opposition 
— Beaufort, Gondi and the rest. This we know by a letter 
from De Laulne, secretary to the Due de Chevreuse. At 
the time of the Duchess's journey to Compiegne, so Goulas 
tells us, this agreement had taken definite shape. Mazarin's 
notebooks prove that all through September and October 
he had frequent interviews with Mme. de Chevreuse. She 
was interesting herself in the Cardinal's plans, and becom- 
ing his ally : she agreed to be responsible for the behaviour 
of her party. She was on excellent terms with the Due 
d'Orleans, who was lukewarm in his attachment to the 
Regent, and boasted her ability to win him over com- 
pletely. Through Mme. de Montbazon, she would also 
secure the adhesion of Beaufort, who had been released. 
Thanks to Laigue and Gondi, she would be able to keep 
the Frondeurs in hand. A strange accomplice, truly, for 
the Cardinal ! A strange house in which to seek support 
for his policy ! 

Ever since her return to Paris, in fact, Mme. de Chev- 
reuse had been living with Laigue, just as she had lived 
with him in Flanders ; she had lodged him in her own 
house, under the nose of her husband, who had made no 
objection whatever. Everybody was perfectly well aware 
of the relations between this gentleman and the Duchess. 
He was invited everywhere. The Due d'Orleans was more 
than civil to him. At Court he was surrounded by friends ; 
he was present at the Queen's "petit coucher," and cracked 
jokes with Her Majesty ! Above all things, he strove to 
push his own private advantage : he had begun life without 

2/5 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

a penny, and was now busied, thanks to expedients of his 
own, in pihng up a very fair fortune, which was to allow 
of his giving his niece, Marguerite de Laigue, a dowry of 
350,000 livres, in the year 1650. He himself had never 
married, and the Duchess, in spite of her eight-and-forty 
years, and the disappearance of charms which no longer 
sufficed to explain the passions she might stir, permitted 
this gallant of five-and-thirty openly to play a part which 
did not seem to raise the faintest blush upon her cheek. 

But Condi's behaviour was more suspicious still. 

A curious figure ! Born of a family of Italian bankers 
who had rendered precious financial services to the French 
Kings during the sixteenth century — lending them many 
sums of money — and who had been rewarded with a shower 
of honours, Gondi had been destined for the Church from 
his earliest youth, and in 1644, at the age of thirty, had 
been chosen by his own uncle, the Archbishop of Paris, 
as his Coadjutor. No man could have been less fitted 
to be a Churchman. Of elegant appearance, carefully 
dressed as any cavalier, crowned with waving feathers, 
always on the look-out for a love-affair, in which he had 
considerable success, he was quite without virtue, and 
paraded a long array of vices. Richelieu, who knew him 
well and liked him ill, declared he had a "hang-dog look " : 
he thought him a restless and rebellious man, whosfe "bad 
qualities surpassed those of which the house of Retz was 
generally accused." In the eyes of Mazarin, who had so 
much cause to complain of him, and may not be quite 
impartial in his judgment, Retz was "a monster," a man 
without religion, addicted to " godlessness, debauchery 
and wickedness"; "the most haughty, ambitious and evil- 
intentioned of men, and the enemy of all peace and order, 
utterly faithless." The worst of it was that Gondi knew 
his own worthlessness, and boasted of it. ' "My poor 
friend," said he to somebody who had been remonstrating 
with him, "you waste your time when you preach to me ! 

276 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

I know very well I am a rogue, but in spite of you and 
everybody else I mean to go on being one, because that 
is what I like best ! " He had set his heart on playing 
a great part in the disturbances of the Fronde. Mazarin 
declares that he said to him one day : "If M. de Beaufort 
is Fairfax, I am Cromwell ! " That was a great delusion ! 
Meanwhile, he was giving himself out to be a strong repub- 
lican : he would have had the same thing done in France 
as had been done in England. He lacked the strength of 
character which had given Cromwell his power, and tried 
to make up for his want of talent by his intrigues. 

And this it was that attracted him to Mme. de Chev- 
reuse ! Through her, he thought, he would get into touch 
with the Old Fronde, with such men as Montbazon and 
Beaufort, and with the Spaniards, that supreme resource 
in case of danger ! And the Duchess, on her side, believ- 
ing in his popularity, fancied that through him she would 
be able to influence the Paris mob, and so made overtures 
to him. Her chief means of attracting him, and keeping 
him about her, was her own daughter ! 

Mile, de Chevreuse — Charlotte-Marie de Lorraine — had 
then reached her twenty-fourth year. Of middle height 
and distinguished appearance, with a pretty mouth and "a 
fine contour of face," she was considered a handsome 
woman. It has been said, indeed, that she was too thin, 
and that her complexion was not clear enough ; but it was 
a woman, Mme. de Motteville, who brought this accusation 
against her. In any case, so Condi declares, she had "the 
most beautiful eyes in the world, and a way of using them 
that was admirable, and peculiar to herself." Elsewhere 
Retz, who certainly penned his Memoirs after his passion 
had died down, speaks rather severely of her. "All she 
possessed," he says, "was beauty, of which one quickly 
tires when it has no other accompaniment. Her wit was 
always confined to the person she loved; but then she 
never loved the same person long; therefore nobody 

277 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

thought her witty for long. . . . She had more beauty than 
charm, and was by nature silly to the point of being 
ridiculous ! " The truth is that Mile, de Chevreuse was 
exceedingly capricious : she was a spoilt child ; when she 
lost her temper she would throw "her petticoats, her 
hoods, her gloves into the fire," and even Venetian laces, 
which her "girls — her waiting-women — only saved with 
the greatest difficulty in the world." Retz adds: "If she 
could have thrown her gallants on the fire too, when she 
was tired of them, she would have done it with the best 
will in the world ! " 

Her mother had not as yet been able to find a husband 
for her. There had been some question of marrying her 
to M. de Beaufort, who had believed her to be very rich. 
It would have been a splendid alliance ; but Beaufort 
had not persisted in the matter. Then the Duchesse 
d'Aiguillon, niece of Cardinal Richelieu, thought of her 
for her nephew, the Due de Richelieu, but the Duke was 
in love with Mile, de Pons, and ended by marrying that 
lady. There was soon to be some idea of the Prince de 
Conti. While awaiting her entrance into the bonds of 
matrimony. Mile, de Chevreuse found entertainment in 
the homage of the gentlemen who surrounded her : the 
Coadjutor became her prime favourite. 

Before long, Condi's constant attendance at the Hotel 
de Chevreuse was common property. "The Coadjutor," 
writes Lenet, "was in close intimacy with the Duchesse de 
Chevreuse, and it was said in the world that he was 
endeavouring to enter into still more cordial relations with 
Mademoiselle, her daughter." "The Coadjutor," says la 
Rochefoucauld, "had a great friendship with Mme. de 
Chevreuse, and the beauty of her daughter was said to 
have still greater power over him." "Mile, dq Chevreuse," 
writes the Great Mademoiselle in still more straightforward 
fashion, "was the Coadjutor's mistress." Retz, in his 
Memoirs, details his own successes in the most vain- 

278 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

glorious manner. He declares that Mazarin, in his desire 
to separate him from Mile, de Chevreuse, did all he could 
to get him ousted by rivals in the fair Charlotte's affections 
— M. de Candale and M. d'Aumale — and that their atten- 
tions gave rise to scenes of jealousy and heated explana- 
tions, as a consequence of which both gentlemen were 
dismissed. 

What is more certain is that the picture presented by 
a household in which mother and daughter lived under 
such conditions, under the complaisant eyes of the deaf 
old Duke, was anything but edifying. Besides seeing 
Charlotte at the Hotel de Chevreuse, the Coadjutor met 
her in the house of her cousin, Louise de Lorraine, the 
wife of the Marquis de Rhodes. On April i6, 165 1, 
Mazarin wrote as follows: "Mme. de Chevreuse, to whom 
I had said that I did not see how the Queen was to make 
sure of the Coadjutor's mind, and that I was greatly afraid 
he would soon fail her, confided to me that she would keep 
him in hand through her daughter, who behaved to the 
Coadjutor in such a fashion that she made him in love 
with her, and this she has confirmed to me several times 
since. And the said lady did in fact rule him in this 
way, having laid the bridle on her daughter's neck, so that 
she appointed meetings in the house of Mme. de Rhodes 
with the Coadjutor, who constantly saw her at the Hotel de 
Chevreuse at unseasonable hours, so that the scandal- 
mongers said her marriage with the Prince de Conti 
could not but be a very good one, seeing the priest had 
been there already ! " Retz tells us in his Memoirs that 
he used to go to the Hotel de Chevreuse every evening, 
and went home again between midnight and one o'clock 
in the morning. "Nothing could have been more 
completely the opposite of everything that happened at 
the Hotel de Chevreuse," he modestly remarks, "than 
the confirmations (I was holding every morning in the 
churches), the lectures I was giving (to pious seminarists) 

279 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

at St. Magloire, and other occupations of that kind. I 
possessed the art of reconciling them all, and in the eyes 
of the world this art justifies all that it reconciles." 

And all this immoderate existence was attended by the 
procession of distresses, disputes and low quarrels which 
are its usual concomitants. Mme. de Montbazon, whose 
moral conduct was no better than her stepdaughter's, and 
who, according to Mazarin, allowed her own daughter to 
follow Charlotte's example, was to be seen, in her jealousy 
of that young lady's success, handing about a letter from 
Mile, de Chevreuse to Noirmoutier, in which she com- 
plained of his faithlessness, as if he, too, had been her 
lover, and reproached him with having cast her off for the 
sake of Mme. de Rhodes, "and a great deal more abuse of 
that kind." This affair made a great stir. Mme. de 
Chevreuse called her stepmother to account, but she replied, 
with a laugh, that one ought to scorn all scandal, and that 
they themselves were both of them accused of having a 
lover of seventy-five ! On another occasion, when Mile, 
de Chevreuse had angrily complained to Gondi of the dis- 
agreeable stepfatherly fashion in which Laigue seemed 
disposed to treat her, lecturing her perpetually about her 
behaviour, and boring her with his remonstrances, Retz 
held a council with Charlotte and Mme. de Rhodes, and 
all three came to the conclusion that to rid themselves of 
the tiresome mentor, they must supply Mme. de Chevreuse 
with a new lover ! As a matter of fact, M. de Haqueville, 
on whom their choice had fallen, took himself out of the 
way. 

Easy-going though contemporary opinion was as to the 
necessity for observing certain principles of morality in 
daily life, such scenes as these could not fail to cause 
painful astonishment in many quarters. Mazarin was fully 
aware of the depths to which the frequenters bf the Hotel 
de Chevreuse had fallen. He would speak of it in 
the bluntest manner. "In the presence of a numerous 

280 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

company," he ventured to write in one letter, "Mme. de 
Chevreuse and Mme. de Montbazon separately asserted that 
it was quite permissible ... for one's own pleasure, for 
the persons one loved, to satisfy feelings of ambition or of 
vengeance. This is the doctrine these ladies practise and 
preach. And when age prevents the said ladies from 
turning their own beauty to profit, they have recourse to 
their daughters'. . . ." 

And thus it came about that these three — Mme. de 
Chevreuse, Laigue and Gondi — held together by so strange 
a bond, laboured in unison to support the policy of 
Mazarin ! 

Now there was one party which could not regard this 
understanding between the Cardinal and the Chevreuse- 
Gondi faction with any feeling but one of the deepest 
displeasure — the Cond^s. The Prince de Conde, who had 
been faithful to the Regent through all the late troubles, 
after having gained victories over the Spaniards which had 
greatly strengthened the Government's position, felt the 
favour bestowed by the Queen and Mazarin on persons 
who had once caused him to be thrown into prison to be 
an insult to himself. He lost his temper. Looking about 
for a pretext, he protested that he and his family had not 
been given what they had been promised — the County of 
Montb^liard for himself, and Pont-de-l'Arche for his 
sister, the Duchesse de Longueville. A whole troop of 
young noblemen gathered about him, spurring him on : 
a new Fronde began to rise up — the Fronde of the princes 
and the dandies. On September 14, 1649, after a some- 
what lively altercation between Mazarin and Cond^, there 
had been a scene, and some fear of a rupture; with 
much difficulty, a reconciliation had been arranged. 
Cond6, haughty and impatient by nature, now became 
absolutely aggressive in his dealings with the Cardinal : 
challenged him, declared he would call on Parliament to 

281 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

put an edict of the year 1617, which forbade any foreigner 
to serve a French sovereign as Minister, into force ; talked 
of demanding that the Regent's powers should be made 
over to himself. His outrageous pretensions, his arrogance 
and threats, made him a standing danger to Mazarin. 

The enmity with which the Dowager Princesse de Conde 
and her daughter, the Duchesse de Longueville, had 
inspired Mme. de Chevreuse seven years previously, now 
flamed up in her heart against her former foes. Her plan 
was swiftly made : she would induce the members of the 
Old Fronde, so the Duchesse de Nemours explains to us, 
to join forces with those of the Parliamentary Fronde, and 
all of them together would call on Anne of i\ustria to 
arrest Cond6. She laid her proposal before the Queen. 
Prudently, as Monglat tells us, laying stress on the 
difficulties against which the Regent was struggling, she 
dwelt on the harm the Prince was doing, and proffered 
the friendship and devotion of her own friends. "The 
Queen," so Mme. de Motteville acknowledges, "was so 
sick of the Prince de Conde 's pride that she was more and 
more inclined towards the Frondeurs, who were being led 
to serve her by the Duchesse de Chevreuse." And in his 
notebooks the Cardinal wrote, on October 16, 1649 : "Mme. 
de Chevreuse, twice over, has talked to me, forgetting 
nothing, to make known to me, in the first place, that it " 
(the arrest of Conde) "v;as a certain blow, and further, to 
persuade me it was an infallible means of re-establishing 
the King's authority in Paris and in all the provinces. 
Peace, so the Duchess explained, would most certainly 
follow : (she said) that I should be able to avenge myself 
on M. le Prince, who had offended me in sheer wantonness, 
and who, if a prompt remedy was not used to put some 
obstacle in the way of his elevation, would soon be master 
over everything ; that Monsieur le Prince was not what he 
is thought to be; that he is strong among the weak, but 
very weak among the strong; that the nobility and the 

282 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

Princes are all furious against him. Finally, the said lady- 
would answer to me for the whole party — M. de Beaufort, 
De Belli^vre, the Coadjutor, Noirmoutier — and that en- 
tirely." All the Duchess asked in return was to be well 
treated by the Queen. Mazarin confined his answer to a 
few vague sentences. 

But the idea was making headway. Anne of Austria 
was realizing that she would have to arrest Cond6. Mme. 
de Chevreuse was full of exultation. At last her influence 
in State affairs M^as assuming the importance which had 
been her dream! "She saw herself," writes Mme. de 
Motteville, "in a position to call back to life those old 
longings to rule the Queen which she had conceived in 
the early days of the Regency." For the Government, the 
question was one of keeping the mob on its side, and 
preventing disturbances in the streets. Could Gondi 
reassure the Regent on this point? Anne of Austria 
resolved to see the Coadjutor herself, at the Palais-Royal. 
Mazarin made the first advances, in a conversation with 
Mme. de Chevreuse, on January i, 1650; the Queen con- 
firmed his action ; she had even drawn up a note, in which 
she said : " I cannot believe, in spite of the past and the 
present, that Monsieur le Coadjuteur is not on my side; I 
beg I may see him without the knowledge of any persons 
save Mme. and Mile, de Chevreuse : that name will 
guarantee his safety." Gondi agreed, and the interview 
took place at midnight in the Queen's oratory, whither the 
Coadjutor had been conducted by one of her Majesty's 
cloakbearers. Anne of Austria poured out her complaints 
against Conde; Mazarin added his own entreaties; the 
Coadjutor professed his devotion to the sovereign. 

But this time there must be rewards ! Mme. de Chev- 
reuse asked for a cardinal's hat for Gondi ; a captaincy in 
the Guard of the King's brother, the Due d'Anjou, for 
Laigue ; a duchy, and the governorship of Charleville, for 
Noirmoutier; and certain indemnities for Vendome and 

283 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

their friends. There was probably some mention, also, of 
the return of Chateauneuf to the Ministry; the Queen's 
answer was not unfavourable. Further conferences ensued, 
and at these Mme. de Chevreuse, bringing Laigue and 
Noirmoutier in her train, was present. Her proposals were 
accepted, and the Government spoke, in return, of the 
simultaneous arrest of Conde, Conti and Longueville. The 
agreement was concluded. For another five or six days 
Mazarin hesitated, and finally, on January i8, 1650, when 
the three Princes came to the Council, Conde was placed 
under arrest by Guitaut, a captain in the Guard, Conti by 
Comminges, a lieutenant, and Longueville by Cressi, an 
ensign in the same regiment; the three prisoners were 
conducted to Vincennes under an escort composed of 
gendarmes and chevau-legers. There was no resistance 
at all. 

That was a day of triumph at the Hotel de Chevreuse ! 
While the arrests were being made, writes Guy Joly, "the 
Coadjutor was at the Hotel de Chevreuse with the Due 
de Beaufort, who had dined there; the door of the house 
was kept closed, and the servants forbidden to allow any 
visitor to enter." Beaufort's equerry, Brillet, brought 
the news; and letters announcing it were forthwith written 
and dispatched in all directions. 

Thus the alliance with Mazarin had resulted in success, 
and a perpetual interchange of attentions, civilities, offers 
of service, between the Cardinal and the Duchess, ensued. 
Mme. de Chevreuse expressed her opinion on business 
matters : it was listened to ; she made suggestions, and her 
advice was received with respect. On certain occasions 
the Secretaries of State even went to her house to hear 
what she had to say. "Yesterday afternoon," wrote Le 
Tellier to Mazarin on June 14, "Mme. de Chevreuse sent 
to ask me to go to her ; I went, and she told me the Deputy 
for Provence had paid her a visit, that things were going 
very ill in that province, and that it was much to be feared 

284 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

it would take up arms again. I pointed out to Mme. de 
Chevreuse that this was not a thing that need necessarily 
lead to bad consequences. When I was leaving her, she 
requested me to send your Eminence the memorandum here 
enclosed, in order that it might please you to use your influ- 
ence with the Queen to induce her to order the confiscation 
of the persons therein mentioned." In all his letters Mazarin 
reiterated his expressions of respect, fidelity and devotion. 

And Mme. de Chevreuse made the most of her favour. 
She begged incessantly : for herself she asked the ransom 
money paid for the liberation of the Prince de Ligne, who 
had been made prisoner in a battle, 150,000 florins — 300,000 
francs. Mazarin laid her request before Anne of Austria, 
who granted her 80,000 francs. For Laigue she demanded, 
besides certain honours from the Due d'Orleans, a pension 
of 10,000 livres, and a sum paid down of 5000 more. Above 
all, she insisted that Chateauneuf should be recalled to 
power. After more or less evasion, Mazarin and the Queen 
gave in ; the Seals were taken from Seguier, and handed 
over to the Duchess's friend. Chateauneuf was then 
seventy; but, says Retz, "his strong and vigorous health, 
his royal way of spending money, his absolute unconcern 
as to everything which did not rise above the average, his 
rough and savage temper, which was taken for frankness, 
made up for his age, and caused him to be regarded as a 
man not yet past his work." Never had the authority of 
Mme. de Chevreuse seemed more efficient, nor her under- 
standing with Mazarin more close ! 

Were they sincere, either of them ? Did not the Car- 
dinal, at the bottom of his heart, dread his new ally's 
duplicity? And knowing what Condi's ambition was, did 
he not expect him to play the traitor? As early as on 
June 26, Le Tellier was writing to the Cardinal: "This 
evening I have seen a man of quality who certainly must 
know what is happening, and w^ho told me he had learnt 

285 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

for certain that M. le Coadjuteur and Mme. de Chevreuse 
were resolved to use strong measures to drive your 
Eminence out of your office; that Mme. de Chevreuse has 
proposed this to Monsieur, and strongly pressed him to 
exert himself for this purpose ; but that his Royal Highness 
has not undertaken to do so; that M. de Chateauneuf is 
aware of this cabal, but nevertheless acts as if he did not 
approve of it." Mazarin was so convinced, and rightly, 
that he was to be betrayed, that from this time forward he 
was to do all that lay in his power to separate the Coadjutor 
from Mme. de Chevreuse. Gondi, at all events, had one 
motive for turning against the Minister— he knew he was 
resolved to oppose his advancement to the rank of Cardinal 
with all his might. 

At a very early stage in the proceedings, the Coadjutor 
had had his doubts on this subject. He had mentioned 
them to Mme. de Chevreuse, who had conveyed his fears 
to Le Tellier. "As to that point in your memorandum 
connected with the Coadjutor's desire of being made a 
Cardinal," writes Colbert, Mazarin's secretary and steward, 
to Le Tellier, "his Eminence was much astonished, and 
afterwards desired me to tell you that no reason on earth 
would induce him to grant the Coadjutor his request." 
Colbert went on to say that steps must at once be taken 
to separate the Duchess from the Coadjutor : that Le Tellier 
had better see her, "and sound her mind as far as he 
could, find out whether there was any sincerity in her 
perpetual protestations of friendship, and in connection 
with these, should unbosom himself, and speak to her 
confidentially ; his Eminence could not grant what he 
(the Coadjutor) asked : apart from that, he had authority 
(from the Queen) to offer him anything he might desire. 
It would be more correct and more advantageous for Mme. 
de Chevreuse to work with the Queen, and to throw herself 
entirely into the plans of the Cardinal, or turn the 
Coadjutor's mind away from this design." Mme. de 

286 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

Chevreuse returned an ambiguous reply to these overtures. 
Colbert persisted. It was necessary, he declared, that the 
Duchess should be forced into choosing between the 
Minister and the Coadjutor. "If the said lady," he 
explained, "would not accept the proposal, his Eminence 
(the Cardinal) would conclude she was working to obtain 
his place for the Coadjutor." The proceeding was rather 
a hasty one. Mazarin was mistaken in thinking his hold 
on Mme. de Chevreuse to be so great. Some time after- 
wards, in September, 1650, M. de Boisleve informed the 
Minister that the Duchess was certainly trying to compass 
his overthrow, and this time her object was to get Chateau- 
neuf appointed to the head of the Ministry. She had 
mentioned her idea to Retz, who, in some astonishment, 
it must be said, had protested against it, asserting that "he 
did not intend to play second fiddle." At that very 
moment, she was multiplying her expressions of fidelity 
and attachment to the Cardinal's person; there could be 
no doubt about her bad faith ! , 

Then the Minister responded by dealings as double 
as her own ; he sent word through Colbert that on the one 
hand discredit must be cast on the Coadjutor and his 
friends, and on the other the efforts to detach Mme. de 
Chevreuse from the Coadjutor's cause, by parting her 
from him, must be persisted in. "You might," writes 
Colbert, "agree with her about everything, assuring her 
she will be left perfectly quiet, that the Queen will show 
her extraordinary favour, and bestow more solid advan- 
tages on her, if the plan is carried out; you might even 
speak of some marriage for her daughter, the success of 
which should be ensured by favours the Queen might 
grant." In reply, Mme. de Chevreuse poured out more and 
more expressions of gratitude. To prove how completely 
she shared the Cardinal's views, she went so far as to abuse 
Retz, and bring accusations against him. But all the same, 
she pertinaciously demanded the Cardinal's hat for him. 

287 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

She defended his cause, pointing out to Le TeUier that he 
had suffered from the injustice done him, which he had 
bitterly resented. And, she went on, Gondi was powerful ; 
the princes and their party were making advances to him, 
which he might very likely end by accepting. When the 
Court came back, in November, from a long journey 
through France, and Mme. de Chevreuse began to plead 
the Coadjutor's cause again with Anne of Austria, 
declaring Condi's conduct to have been "a tissue of 
important services," and repeating her assertion that he 
had been unjustly served, that he was treated with scorn, 
the Regent had lost her patience and her temper too, and 
Mazarin had avoided giving any direct answer at all. 
Gondi told Le Tellier that "he was being reduced, against 
his own will, to such a condition that he would have to be 
one of two things, either the head of a party, or a cardinal." 
This was a threat ! 

Thus Mazarin 's plans were now a failure. He had not 
obtained that support from the Duchess on which he had 
reckoned : and he had not separated her from the Coad- 
jutor. Morosini, the Ambassador, wrote his home 
government that the Minister had no confidence in the 
Duchess. Already, in the month of April, Anne of 
Austria had "betrayed much bitterness of feeling against 
Mme. de Chevreuse, whom she accused of playing every- 
body false in too open a fashion," wrote Colbert to Le 
Tellier. Mazarin, completely undeceived, now regarded 
all the persons who frequented her company with suspi- 
cion : he found fault with Lionne, the Queen's secretary, 
because he saw her too often. He was alarmed by the 
regard shown her by the Due d'Orl6ans. Then the Duchess 
made a thrust at the Cardinal in the Queen's own presence. 
Talking to Her Majesty one day, so Montglat relates, she 
ventured to tell her what the outside world was saying 
about Mazarin : she herself, she acknowledged, was 
astonished at the way he was hated : everything he did 

288 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

was criticized : as the Cardinal's friend, she was deeply 
grieved by this attitude of public opinion : so great was the 
aversion of the nation to Mazarin, that whatever hap- 
pened, he would never be liked, and no doubt, she added, 
the Queen, finding her difficulties growing constantly 
greater, would be obliged, one of these days, to dismiss 
him. There could be no doubt as to the meaning of this 
insinuation. Anne of Austria was exceedingly dis- 
pleased by it. She reported the whole story to Mazarin, 
who, Monglat goes on to say, was "so surprised that he 
threw his skull-cap on the floor in a rage, being clearly 
convinced that the Duchess was deceiving him ! " All 
things were ripe for an open rupture. 

It was of a rupture that Mme. de Chevreuse was think- 
ing. Her assertions as to the increasing power of the 
party led by the princes imprisoned at Vincennes were no 
idle boast. It was quite true that Conde's trusted agents 
had sounded the Coadjutor. As a matter of precaution, 
Mazarin had removed the prisoners from Vincennes to 
Marcoussis, towards the end of August, and in November, 
from Marcoussis to the Havre. These removals had not 
been carried out without lively opposition, and difficulties 
with the making of which the Coadjutor had been con- 
nected. Thanks to the Cardinal's unpopularity, the 
princes' party was gaining strength; and it was to its 
interest to acquire as many adherents as possible. It 
was at this moment that the project for reconciling Mme. 
de Chevreuse and Conde, and attaching that lady to 
the princes' cause by proposing a marriage between her 
daughter and the Prince de Conti^ — the whole arrangement 
to end in a united campaign against the Cardinal — was 
conceived by two feminine brains. 

The two ladies thus inspired were the Princess Pala- 
tine — Anne, daughter of Charles I, de Gonzague, Due 
de Nevers, who had married the Prince Palatine, and 
resided in Paris — and Mme. de Rhodes, niece of Mme. de 
u 289 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Chevreuse. Guy Joly tells us that when the idea had 
been talked over between them, they betook themselves to 
the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, to discuss it there. Mile, 
de Chevreuse, charmed by the idea of marrying Conti, 
gladly fell in with the plan. Laigue and Noirmoutier were 
against it : they were afraid of Conde's imperious temper, 
and dreaded his vengeance. Mme. de Chevreuse was 
rather uncertain at first ; she was torn between her longing 
for so brilliant a marriage and her old spite against the 
princes. The negotiations were pushed forward : Condi's 
adhesion was secured. Mile, de Chevreuse, Mme. de 
Rhodes, and the Coadjutor joined together in working on 
the Duchess: "Mile, de Chevreuse cried shame on her 
mother for the hesitation she showed about procuring her 
establishment," says Retz. They ended by carrying their 
point. It was settled that a treaty was to be signed ; Conti 
was to marry Mile, de Chevreuse : and as a consequence 
of the marriage there would be a fusion of the two 
parties. Not that this Conti, who was suggested as a 
husband for Mile, de Chevreuse, was a very attractive 
individual. " He was of poor composition," writes Mme. de 
Motteville, "but owing to the great plans that were built 
on this marriage, the best aspect that could be given to it 
was shown, and it became a thing of great importance to 
Mme. de Chevreuse." The Duchess followed her friends' 
lead. Mazarin knew nothing of the plot. Events were to 
hurry all these complications to a dramatic conclusion. 

Mme. de Chevreuse, discussing the clauses of the treaty 
to be drawn up, in the presence of the persons deputed by 
the princes, had boldly set forth her conditions : Mazarin 
must be driven out, she s'aid, and Chateauneuf must 
replace him as chief Minister : the Prince de Conti, who 
was to marry her daughter, must be made. Governor of 
Provence : Cond^ must be Governor of Guyenne : and 
Gondi must have the Cardinal's hat. All these matters 
she settled as by her sovereign authority. To what might 

290 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

she not aspire ? This business meant the welding to- 
gether of all the Frondes : the Due d'Orleans was in the 
plot : the Court would soon find itself at the conspirators' 
mercy, and Mazarin would be forced to capitulate ! 

When the Cardinal found out what was going on, as 
he did at last, he was quite confounded. This time the 
matter was serious indeed ! He tried to come to terms 
with the Due d'Orleans, in the first place, but the Prince, 
led by Mme. de Chevreuse and the Coadjutor, exacted as 
a first condition that the Queen should consent to the 
Chevreuse-Conti marriage and release the three princes. 
At the same time, so extraordinary were the falseness and 
love of intrigue of the whole band of conspirators, the 
Princess Palatine sent an underhand proposal to Mazarin 
to enable him to enter into direct negotiations with the 
princes ! The Cardinal's notebooks show that crippled 
as he found himself to be by all these various complica- 
tions, he paused, not knowing which way to turn, waiting 
on events, looking this way and that : his irresolution 
worked his ruin. 

His enemies, noting it, completed their own pact. The 
draft treaty was drawn up and signed on January 30, 165 1, 
in the house of the Princess Palatine. The conditions 
put forward by Mme. de Chevreuse were accepted : the 
princes were to be set at liberty, the Cardinal was to be 
dismissed : the Due d'Orleans was to have a preponder- 
ating voice in the Government as to the choice of the 
members of the Council. Special agreements guaranteed 
the various interests of the signatories : the Due 
d'Enghien, Condi's son, was to marry one of Gaston's 
daughters : Conti was to marry Mile, de Chevreuse : the 
Duchesse de Montbazon and her family were to have sums 
of money : Chateauneuf was to be appointed Minister in 
chief : Paul de Gondi was to be made a Cardinal. The 
Princess Palatine made the following stipulation in the 
name of the absent princes: "We, Princess Palatine, do 

291 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

promise in the name of and in virtue of the power we have 
received from Messieurs the Princes and the Duchesse de 
Longueville, and pledge the faith and honour of M. le 
Prince de Conti, that as soon as he is set at Hberty he will 
accept the conditions that shall appear reasonable as 
between himself and Mile, de Chevreuse, and will marry 
her in the face of our Holy Mother the Church." 

And thereupon the conspirators began to take decisive 
action. The Coadjutor caused Gaston to demand the 
immediate release of the princes from Parliament. This 
was a bold step. There was a lively quarrel between the 
Duke and the Cardinal at the Palais Royal, the outcome 
of which was Gaston's refusal to reappear at Court. On 
February 4, at Monsieur's request again, Parliament 
demanded the dismissal of Mazarin, and then the Paris 
burghers, under the command of Gaston, who was 
Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, took up arms, barri- 
caded the streets, occupied the city gates : the situation was 
growing critical. 

Mazarin, defenceless, and threatened with imprisonment, 
was constrained to give way and take to flight : in the 
course of the night of February 6, 1651, after a long 
conversation with Anne of Austria, during which all the 
arrangements for her future conduct were made, he de- 
parted in haste. On the 8th, the Parliament passed an 
edict according to the terms of which the Cardinal was 
expelled the kingdom, and the enlargement of the princes 
demanded from the Queen. Anne of Austria was out- 
flanked. She would have fled too, taking the King with 
her : but Chateauneuf gave Mme. de Chevreuse timely 
warning, and she sent word to the Due d'Orl^ans and the 
Coadjutor; instantly, the Palais Royal was surrounded by 
armed burghers; the Queen was a prisoner,- the Govern- 
ment was vanquished; on the loth, the Court made its 
submission, and the Queen signed an order for the 
princes' release. 

292 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

Then Mazarin, who had been waiting on events at 
Lillebonne, in Normandy, seized the advantage offered 
him by circumstance, flew to the Havre, walked, booted 
and spurred, and in his travelling dress, into the citadel, 
himself informed the princes they were free, and, asking 
nothing but their friendship in return, opened their prison 
doors. Deceived, the princes promised what he asked. 
Mazarin made them a long speech : he warned Conde to 
be on his guard against his enemies, enlightened him as 
to the duplicity of this person and that : Conde assured 
him of his faithful devotion. When all was done, the 
Cardinal rode to Dieppe, thence to Doullens, Peronne and 
Bar-le-Duc, crossed the frontier, and took refuge at 
Cologne. He knew very well what he was doing when 
he set the princes free ! He had cast them into the midst 
of the Frondeurs, and soon all the allies would be fighting 
amongst themselves ! 

It was Mme. de Chevreuse, according to Mme. de 
Motteville, who advised Mazarin and the Regent to decide 
on the Cardinal's departure, for a season at all events: 
"So," she said, "as to let the storm blow over." The 
Duchess promised the Queen she would do her best to 
bring about a reconciliation between the Cardinal and 
the Due d'Orleans, and after that it would be easy to 
persuade the Prince to consent to his return. "Perhaps," 
adds Mme. de Motteville, "she did this simply for the 
amusement of the intrigue and the novelty of it ! " On 
the other hand, the Duchesse de Nemours thought that 
"Mme. de Chevreuse had always asserted in the council 
of the Fronde that the only thing to be done was to remove 
the Cardinal from the Queen's neighbourhood, and that, 
knowing her as she did, she was perfectly certain that 
once he was removed from Her Majesty's sight, she 
would forget all about him." Retz, to conclude, was 
convinced it was Mme. de Chevreuse who, with Chateau- 
neuf's help, had brought about the Cardinal's flight: "A 

293 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

great political move," he considered it, "prepared by Mme. 
de Chevreuse and the Keeper of the Seals, so as to cause 
the Cardinal to work his own ruin ! " If Mazarin and 
Anne of Austria had preserved any illusions as to the 
fiedelity of the Duchess, they must have been thoroughly 
informed, by this time, as to what they were to expect. 

From the Castle of Briihl, near Cologne, where Mazarin 
had taken refuge, he poured out his rage against Mme. de 
Chevreuse. "She has broken everything to pieces," he 
wrote in April, 1651, "and set everything to work, to entice 
this man and that away from the King's service, to surprise 
fortresses, raise the Huguenots in revolt, establish them 
(with the help of Spain), at La Rochelle; she has always 
been a pensioner of the Spaniards, who paid her for the 
services she rendered them I She has done all she could 
for the interests of Spain and of the Due de Lorraine, at 
the expense of France, to ruin the Queen, and overthrow 
the State ! " 

But though Mme, de Chevreuse had succeeded, though 
her intrigues had brought about the Cardinal's departure, 
and the triumph of the Fronde, though she had secured a 
brilliant marriage for her daughter in the course of the 
enterprise, the end of the business was not to fulfil the 
brilliant promise of its opening stages ! 

The Prince de Cond6 — "the great Cond6 " — whose 
prison doors had just been opened, was then a man of 
thirty. He was a haughty being, whose scruples were few 
and far between. As soon as he reached Paris, he went 
to pay his respects to Mme. de Chevreuse ; he was aware 
of the stipulations made by the Princess Palatine in his 
name, and that he was bound to accept the marriage of his 
brother, the Prince de Conti. The interview was of a 
cordial nature. The Duchesse de Nemours relates that the 
Prince thanked Mme. de Chevreuse for what she had done, 
assuring her that he owed her his freedom ; according to 

294 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

the undertaking made in his name, he requested the hand 
of her daughter for Conti, Conti himself being present. 
Mme. de Chevreuse repHed that she fek the proposal to be 
a great honour for her family, but that engagements made 
in prison might be taken to have been made under com- 
pulsion, and she requested the Prince to take back his 
word, and that any future action he decided on might be 
perfectly sincere. Conde replied by adhering to his 
request. Mme. de Chevreuse then granted it, and Conti 
at once began to pay his court to the young lady. 

Preparations for the marriage were forthwith begun. 
The Hotel de Chevreuse was hung with tapestries which 
had belonged to Mazarin : " I am informed from Paris," 
writes the Cardinal on April i, "that the Hotel de Chev- 
reuse is being sumptuously adorned for the wedding 
solemnities, and that three tapestries which are my 
property have been hung up there — to wit, the ' Scipio,' 
the ' Paris,' and one set of forest scenes, touched up with 
gold threads, which fiormed part of those pledged to 
Herwart." To calm his mind, Colbert informed the fallen 
Minister that the Duchess and Laigue had bought the 
tapestries for 300,000 livres more than they were worth. 
Just at this juncture, Mme. de Longueville, Conde's 
haughty and high-spirited sister, reached Paris from 
Stenay, where she had been detained by business. 

Mme. de Chevreuse at once paid her a visit. In the 
course of the conversation that ensued, the Duchess made 
no reference whatever to the Conti marriage. This silence 
boded ill. And, as a matter of fact, Mme. de Longueville 
had come back to Paris resolved this marriage should be 
broken off at all hazards. She still nursed her old hatred 
of Mme. de Chevreuse. She could not forget that it was in 
the Duchess's house, where all her family had been so 
detested, that the arrest of the princes her kinsmen had 
been resolved and plotted, a few short years previously. 
She could not swallow the idea that Chateauneuf, the 

295 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

murderer of her uncle, the Due Henry de Montmorency, 
was to receive the reward of his crime in the shape of 
honours and greatness. And further, Mile, de Chevreuse, 
when she became Princesse de Conti, would take prece- 
dence of herself at Court ! Even in the houses of the 
Cond^ family, Mme. de Longueville would have to give 
way to this Princess, younger, more admired, than herself ! 
And would not Charlotte end by supplanting her in the 
good graces of the Prince, over whom she still wielded 
so much influence? 

She decided to act at once. Her first step was to 
express doubts, in public, as to the morals of Mile, de 
Chevreuse : she said openly that Conti 's betrothed was 
"the Coadjutor's mistress," that she had had lovers. This 
was an objection for which everybody was prepared. "I 
cannot understand," wrote Mazarin to Lionne, on March 
21, 165 1, "how Mme. de Longueville and La Rochefou- 
cauld, who have the most complete ascendency over the 
mind of the Prince de Cond6, can put their hands to it (this 
marriage). As it is a well-known thing in Paris, it is 
impossible that the people whose interest it is to disgust 
the Prince de Conti can fail to know that the Coadjutor 
sees Mile, de Chevreuse in private every night, and that he 
has a better understanding with her than can be desired by 
the man who is going to marry her." 

Anne of Austria, on her part, had manifested the most 
lively dislike of the plan. Mazarin 's letters encouraged 
her feeling in the matter. The opinion of the Government 
was unanimously hostile. Cond6 was warned of the feeling 
of the Court, and the dangers to which such a woman as 
Mme. de Chevreuse would certainly expose his house, 
were pointed out to him : "a woman of that character and 
mind," whose "dangerous cleverness, and whole conduct" 
were so well known ! The Ministers pressed him hard : 
Lionne and Servien were the go-betweens : the Regent 
herself made advances, offered governorships to Cond6. 

296 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

Urged on by Mme. de Longueville, the Prince lent his ear 
to these suggestions. Quite early in April he had made up 
his mind to break off the marriage : and this meant a 
quarrel between the two Frondes, and the reconciliation of 
the Princes with Anne of Austria, who was making ready 
for that event. 

Advised by Mazarin, so Briihl writes, the Government 
tried to take advantage of the situation. A sudden blow 
would reveal the extent of its real power. This blow was 
to be the dismissal of Chateauneuf, and on April 3, Brienne 
called on the friend of Mme. de Chevreuse to deliver up 
the Seals. The Duchess and her daughter were informed 
of this proceeding, and were further warned that there was 
a talk of exile for them both. The two ladies, so Guy Joly 
tells us, "spent a whole night without taking off their 
clothes, and with all their jewels in a casket, which Mile, 
de Chevreuse kept under her arm. The Coadjutor and 
some of the other Frondeurs also spent the night at the 
Hotel de Chevreuse, taking measures to obtain vengeance, 
when chance should serve them ; but the order for their 
arrest did not arrive, and each person departed to his own 
home, in rather less alarm." 

Next day, they all met again at the Due d'Orleans' 
palace of the Luxembourg. Their excitement was extreme. 
The most extravagant expedients were suggested; there 
was talk of stirring up the populace, marching on the 
Palais-Royal, killing the new Keeper of the Seals, throw- 
ing all the Ministers out of the windows, and carrying off 
the King. All these exaggerated threats were really 
symptoms of weakness. The Prince de Conde would have 
none of them. Since the beginning of April, he had 
discontinued his visits to the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre. 
Some amount of blood relationship between Conti and 
Mile, de Chevreuse had been discovered, necessitating a 
dispensation from Rome; this dispensation was still 
awaited, and the ceremony had been put off. Mme. de 

297 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Chevreuse grew anxious. Conti, to whom Conde had 
repeated everything that was being said about Mile, de 
Chevreuse's light behaviour, was now beginning to slacken 
in his attendance at the Hotel de Chevreuse. Conde had 
quite made up his mind to take back his promise; the only 
difficulty lay in finding a pretext; this was suggested by 
Anne of Austria : the King, as head of the family, would 
forbid Conti to make this marriage : the proposal was 
accepted. 

On the morning of April 15, Anne of Austria, in the 
name of the King, informed Cond6 of her desire that he 
should renounce all idea of carrying through the project 
of marriage he had entertained. "This marriage," she 
said, "was not at all seasonable." The princes bowed to 
her will. 

It was necessary that their decision should be notified to 
Mme. de Chevreuse, and the President de Viole was 
commissioned to perform this duty. Retz has left a 
description of the scene, at wlTich he was present. Viole 
made his appearance at the Hotel de Chevreuse, looking 
very uncomfortable. He vaguely explained the object of 
his visit, protesting that "the affair was deferred, not 
broken off," that the princes were very much annoyed, and 
hoped that in time they might obtain the consent which 
the Queen at present refused to grant. Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, who had expected his communication, replied to it 
calmly and courteously : her daughter, "who was dressing 
herself beside the fire, burst out laughing." 

Five days later, on April 20, Mme. de Chevreuse, beside 
herself with rage, wrote to Noirmoutier, who was then at 
Charleville, of which place he was Governor, that he was 
to let Mazarin know immediately that after the humiliation 
she had just been forced to undergo, she w,as entirely at 
the Cardinal's service. On the receipt of this letter, 
Mazarin wrote to Lionne as follows: "I have discovered 
that everything Mme. de Chevreuse and all the others can 

298 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

possibly do to avenge themselves on M. le Prince will 
certainly be done." The Cardinal's advice to the Queen 
was that she should play off one party against the other, 
prevent any reconciliation between them, and wait. 

Then the Frondeurs, instigated by Mme. de Chevreuse 
and the Coadjutor, opened their campaign. They cried 
down Cond6, representing him to be a man without faith, 
or conscience, or honour : the populace followed them. 
Every kind of calumny was put about concerning the 
princes. According to Guy Joly, Mme. de Chevreuse even 
went the length of asking Mazarin to have the Prince 
rearrested. The Court answered by demanding the 
Cardinal's recall to Paris as a preliminary condition ; 
negotiations began ; the Government's game was to make 
use of the parties to them. In May and June, Mme. de 
Chevreuse and the Coadjutor had several interviews with 
Anne of Austria : the Duchess betrayed the most relent- 
less thirst for vengeance, she clamoured for Cond6's arrest 
even in the open street, and at the risk of sacrificing his 
life. The Queen made as though she would consent. But 
Conde, warned of his danger by her intermediaries, left 
Paris on July 6, and fled hastily to Saint-Maur : the coast 
was clear. 

Then the Queen came to an arrangement with the 
Frondeurs: Gondi was to have his oft-promised cardinal's 
hat : Mile, de Chevreuse was to marry a nephew of 
Mazarin's, who was to have the Duchy of R^thelois, and 
governorships as well : the Frondeurs were to accept the 
Cardinal's return. 

And, thereupon, on September 7, 165 1, the majority of 
Louis XIV was proclaimed. This event, a mere formality, 
as it seemed to be, was in reality a most important fact, 
which singularly increased the power of Mazarin, and was 
to hasten his return. Cond^, now in open revolt, was 
organizing his resistance in the provinces, raising troops, 
and beginning to make war. Mazarin, summoned by the 

299 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

King, drew near the frontier. While the fighting with 
Conde was going forward in Saintonge, the Cardinal was 
slowly moving forward on the other side of the country. 
After various ups and downs of fortune, and some violent 
opposition on the Parliament's part, he reached Sedan oh 
December 24, and rejoined the Court at Poitiers on 
January 29, 1652 ; Mme. de Chevreuse took his side : " I 
saw Mme. de Chevreuse yesterday," wrote Pennacors to 
the Cardinal on January 21, "she told me you must 
absolutely rely on her, and on her friends, and that her 
daughter is of the same mind." Mazarin sent a reply 
expressing similar sentiments. These two personages, 
once more united, gave each other assurances of their 
reciprocal fidelity. During the war with Cond6, in 1652, 
the Duchess rendered useful service to the Minister : in the 
month of June, she interposed herself between the French 
Court and the Due de Lorraine, who had marched to the 
help of the princes with a force of five or six thousand men ; 
she won him over to the Queen's side, and induced him to 
march his troops back again. 

To reward her for her trouble, she put forward claims for 
her friends, and was given due satisfaction. Condi had at 
last received his cardinal's hat, in February, 1652 ; the 
biretta was bestowed on him on the nth of the following 
September, by the King himself, at Compi^gne : Mile, de 
Chevreuse was shortly to be married to Mazarin's nephew, 
Mancini. The Duchess was in favour, once more she 
seemed all-powerful ; was there anything in the world 
for which she dared not hope ? This was the last bright 
flash of her political existence. The majority of Louis 
XIV had changed the face of all things. This closing 
scene of the career of Mme. de Chevreuse was a blaze of 
splendour and good fortune. 

She had reached her fifty-second year; she had grown 
heavy, her face was worn, the gaiety of old days had 
departed. The young King was growing up, and already 

300 



THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE 

a few of his sayings, curt, imperious, portended a future 
lord whose patience was Hkely to be short-Hved. There 
was no place for such persons as Mme. de Chevreuse under 
the coming regime. And certain cruel humiliations and 
sorrows, too, were warning the Duchess that her time was 
over. 

In the course of the events that marked the year 1652, 
Cond6's campaign against the King's troops, the fights 
at B16neau and at the Porte Saint-Antoine, Mazarin's 
second departure, and the return of Louis XIV to Paris, 
Mme. de Chevreuse, save in the matter of the Due de 
Lorraine, had been kept at a distance. She was on such 
bad terms with the Prince de Cond6 that there was no 
reason to fear her coming to any understanding with him ; 
and the Court, having no reason to dread her, simply 
neglected her. Towards the close of April, negotiations 
took place between Mazarin and Cond^ : Mme. de Chev- 
reuse and her associates were not taken into account at all. 
"We are done for! " cried the Cardinal de Retz, on the 
27th, to a friend he happened to meet, "the settlement has 
been made, and without us, for neither Mme. de Chevreuse, 
nor M. de Chateauneuf, nor I myself, have had anything 
to with it ! " When the Duchesse de Chevreuse, adds 
Conrart, asked the King to grant her a passport to go to 
Saint-Germain, where the Court was settled, it was refused, 
"which confirmed the opinion that an agreement had 
been arrived at secretly." No agreement had been reached, 
nor was the moment of such a conclusion very near, but all 
these circumstances proved that the position occupied by 
Mme. de Chevreuse was much less influential than she had 
imagined ; this fact affected her extremely. 

And thereupon, early in the morning of November 7, 
after a very few hours of illness. Mile, de Chevreuse, her 
daughter Charlotte, passed suddenly away in her mother's 
arms! It was a frightful blow I "This death," wrote Guy 
Joly, "came as a surprise to everybody: it was remarked 

301 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

that the face and body of the dead woman turned quite 
black, and a report consequently got about that this was 
the result of poison she had taken herself, or which her 
mother had administered to her, for secret reasons." 
Such an insinuation is quite inadmissible. Mme. de 
Chevreuse was in the deepest grief. Her daughter had 
been her friend, her counsellor. Satirical, eager-hearted, 
impulsive and high-spirited, Charlotte de Chevreuse, so 
like the Duchess in many particulars, had shared all her 
mother's passions. That mother had seen herself live again 
in her child, and her sorrow now completely overwhelmed 
her. This grief, added to all the rest, disheartened her 
utterly : she made up her mind to quit the world and spend 
the rest of her life far from the Court. 

The idea had already occurred to her in April of that 
same year. "Perceiving herself to be somewhat left aside 
in Paris," wrote Retz, "she had come to the decision to 
leave it, and betake herself to Dampierre." But it had 
proved no easy matter for her to give up all active employ- 
ment so quickly, and by the month of October, she was 
back, and trying to gather up the threads again. Laigue 
had gone about paying visits. But the result had not 
been what the Duchess had expected. "She had not," 
adds Retz, "met with either the consideration or the con- 
fidence she had expected, at Court." Her daughter's death 
settled the question. Worn out and saddened, Mme. de 
Chevreuse turned her back on Paris, and departed to 
Dampierre. 



302 



CHAPTER X 

RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

Dampierre — Financial difficulties — Lawsuits with the whole family — 
Dissensions in the household — Foreclosures, penury, a separate 
maintenance — The son and daughters of Mme. de Chevreuse— Her 
final retirement to Gagny — Her death, 1679. 

On her retirement to Dampierre, in the green and smiUng 
valley of Chevreuse, the Duchess made a vow never to 
touch poHtics again. When her friend the Cardinal de 
Retz, whose intrigues Mazarin had not pardoned, and 
never was to pardon, was arrested, on December 19, 1652, 
the Duchess did not Hft a finger. "Mme. de Chevreuse," 
writes Guy Joly, on February 3, 1653, "takes no further 
interest in the business of the Cardinal de Retz." 
Mazarin had returned in triumph to Paris, and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, like everybody else, had accepted the 
situation. Whether by policy or by temperament, the 
Cardinal, more willing to forget treachery than to take 
the trouble of punishing it, heaped civilities on every body. 
"I have seen the persons your Eminence commanded me 
to see," writes Colbert; "Mme. de Chevreuse expressed 
her gratitude to your Eminence for the honour of your 
recollection of her." And the Duchess writes to assure 
Mazarin of her friendly feeling for him. "It is an extreme 
satisfaction to me," she says, "to see that you are per- 
suaded of the pleasure I take in rendering you all the 
services I can, and I protest I will continue to prove to 
you, whenever your interests are concerned, that they are 
as dear to me as they ought to be. I wish you all kinds 
of prosperity, and am, more than any one else in the world, 

303 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

your very humble and obedient servant." Greater defer- 
ence could not be expressed ! Henceforward the Cardinal 
might depend upon her. He asked her to induce Noir- 
moutier, who still continued refractory, to yield, and recon- 
cile him to the Government; she consented. Mazarin was 
always paying her compliments. "I have received, 
Madame," he writes on October i6, 1653, "two of your 
letters, the most obliging in the world; and M. de Laigue 
has said so many things to me in your name, to acquaint 
me with the good graces with which you have the kindness 
to honour me, that I confess, Madame, I know not how 
to express my sense of them as I ought ! Therefore I have 
begged Monsieur I'Abbe Fouquet, who will have the 
honour of carrying this letter to you, to do it for me, and 
that in the most expressive terms he can discover." The 
two found it pleasanter to exchange compliments than to 
make war upon each other. 

And, indeed, if Mme. de Chevreuse had attempted to 
mix herself up with State affairs, the Government, directed 
by Mazarin, and no longer dependent on a weak woman 
like Anne of Austria, but on that strong-willed young 
Prince, Louis XIV, who had now reached his majority, 
would soon have put a stop to it. Of this the Duchess 
was well aware. The utmost she ventured was to intervene 
in favour of the Due de Lorraine, her own kinsman, who, 
having lost his State in the course of the wars between 
France and the Empire, came to the French Court in 
1660, and spent a year pleading for the return of his 
territory. 

She intervened again to plead for the Jansenists. M. du 
Hamel, parish priest of Saint-Merri, and a friend of the 
nuns of the Port-Royal, who had been exiled for having 
defended Retz, begged Mme. de Chevreuse to get him the 
Cardinal's leave to go and take some waters : Mme. de 
Chevreuse forwarded his request, and backed it up, and 
on August 14, 1655, Mazarin replied as follows : "As to 

304 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

the permission for which the Sieur du Hamel asks, I am 
in some difficulty, for the King and Queen are very ill- 
pleased with his behaviour, and he has, indeed, behaved 
very badly since his departure from Paris, and this has 
been the cause of his being sent into Brittany; neverthe- 
less, if you will not relieve me of the necessity of praying 
their Majesties to give him leave to go to the waters, I 
will do it, to obey you ; but I shall await your further orders 
on the subject." And when Mme. de Chevreuse pressed 
her request : " I send you the permission you have asked 
for the Sieur du Hamel, having besought the King to 
grant it, out of blind deference to the commands you have 
been pleased to lay on me." 

In 1656 Arnauld d'Andilly appealed to the t)uchess, and 
also to her sister-in-law, the Princesse de Guemene, to use 
their good offices to prevent his being driven out of Port- 
Royal-des-Champs, from which place the Government 
desired to remove all the solitaries — his friends, who had 
shared his seclusion, had already departed. Mme. de 
Chevreuse replied that she had seen Anne of Austria and 
Mazarin, and that the Government insisted on M. 
d'Andilly's departure, for a time at all events : Andilly 
was obliged to retire to Pomponne; the Duchess had 
achieved a partial success only. 

Twice again, at most, did Mme. de Chevreuse, in spite 
of her good resolutions, attempt to mix herself up, though 
indirectly, with more important matters, such as the choice 
or dismissal of a Minister. In 1652, when the disgrace of 
Le Tellier was noised abroad, Laigue took it into his head 
to get his place for one of his own friends, Jerome de 
Nouveau, Seigneur de Fromont, who had made himself 
useful both to the Duchess and to Mazarin. M. de 
Fromont was ready to pay for his office in hard cash, 
and 100,000 livres of the sum were to pass into Laigue's 
pocket — hence his zeal ! Mme. de Chevreuse asked Retz, 
who was not yet in prison, to help her in the matter. " I 
X 305 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

began to smile," writes the Coadjutor, "and said I thought 
they must take me for a madman ! that it was well known 
I was better aware than anybody that we were not in a 
position to appoint Secretaries of State; and further, that 
if we had been, it was not for M. de Nouveau that we 
should have laboured ! " Le Tellier defended his own 
position, and the whole business came to nothing. 

The second instance was connected with the disgrace of 
Fouquet. Nine years later, towards the end of June 1661, 
Anne of Austria, in performance of an old promise to visit 
Mme. de Chevreuse at Dampierre, spent two or three days 
there with the Duchess. With her she brought her 
daughter-in-law, Madame (Henrietta of England), then 
just seventeen. Louis XIV, a man of three-and-twenty, 
was too much inclined to hang about the young wife, and 
it was to deliver her from his somewhat alarming attentions 
that the Queen, to whom they were anything but pleasing, 
had betaken herself to Dampierre. Laigue suggested that 
the Duchess should make an attack on Fouquet, the Super- 
intendent of the King's Finances. How his interests were 
affected by this intrigue we know not. In the course of 
the long conversations between the two Princesses, the 
subject came up. Anne of Austria was attached to 
Fouquet. The efforts made to oust him distressed her; 
but for a considerable time the King, her son, roused to 
fury by the Superintendent's exactions, had betrayed his 
intention to rid himself of him, and strike him a deadly 
blow. 

Mme. de Chevreuse pleaded the public weal, and the 
issue of events may have led her to believe her intervention 
had been crowned with success; but it is not credible, as 
Mme. de Motteville says, that this visit to Dampierre, 
during which "an important affair was discussed, had any 
particular effect on the decision of the fate of a Minister 
whose credit then appeared to stand so high." The 
business had been settled beforehand, and elsewhere. 

306 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

Louis XIV would never have allowed Mme. de Chevreuse 
to interfere in such a matter — ^nor in any other. 

In fact, the young monarch, as he grew older, was 
making his Court aware, in more and more overwhelming 
fashion, of his own strong-willed and autocratic nature. His 
haughty mien, imposing and severe, his proud and majestic 
manner, his habit of using few words, but those few 
chillingly concise, struck fear into his courtiers' hearts : 
they dreaded him. Less and less possible had it become 
for Mme. de Chevreuse to hope for any return to her 
former dreams of influence and power. 

And she made up her mind to it. Nothing but per- 
sistent spells of bad weather, or the numerous lawsuits in 
which she was engaged, could drive her back to Paris : 
she lived at Dampierre, and entertained there. "Mon- 
sieur," she writes to the Due d'Epernon in October 1657, 
"after having thanked you a thousand times for your 
recollection of me, I must tell you in these lines the dis- 
pleasure I feel at not being able to have the honour of 
seeing you at Dampierre this year : the bad weather drives 
me thence to Paris, where I pray you will send me word 
when I may hope (to see you)." 

Once she showed herself willing to live without making 
plots, the King, who, like his father, was obliged to con- 
sider her position as a Princess, to some extent, of a foreign 
house, was very ready to treat her without any symptom 
of unfriendliness. Mme. de Chevreuse was free to come 
to Court whenever she chose; she had not the honour of 
any close intimacy with the sovereign, but she had the 
right to hold her own rank as a Duchess. On rare occa- 
sions she made her appearance in the King's circle. When 
the Court proceeded to view the fortifications of the 
northern towns — one of those magnificent journeys 
during which Louis XIV exhibited the pomp he so 
dearly loved — Mme. de Chevreuse accompanied Mile, de 
Montpensier. 

3C7 



^ THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

In Paris she went and came as she chose. The Great 
Mademoiselle records her having been seen out walking, 
leaning on the arm of Laigue or Noirmoutier. Thus she 
tells us, once : " I went to see Monceau, because I was 
told that house was for sale. On my return I heard that 
Mme. de Chevreuse and Noirmoutier had been there." 
Was Mme. de Chevreuse thinking of buying the place ? 
It would seem likely. And yet her fortune would hardly 
have permitted of her doing it. Her whole life, in fact, 
was occupied with the numberless difficulties arising out 
of the confusion in her business affairs, and the conse- 
quences of the successive bereavements that had befallen 
her. 

On October i6, 1654, her old father, the Due de Mont- 
bazon, had died. His share in her life had not been a large 
one ! In his retirement at Couzi^res, in Touraine, he had 
reached his eighty-sixth year — a peaceful old age — without 
much care for his own kin, as regardless of his family as 
of his patrimony. Four years previously, Anne of Austria 
had made him sell his office as Governor of Paris, the 
duties of which his advanced age rendered him incapable 
of performing. M. de Montbazon obeyed without a word. 
Nor did he say a word, either, concerning the endless 
lawsuits his children brought against him, on account of 
the disorder into which he had allowed his family affairs 
to fall. 

His son, the Prince de Guem6ne, had obtained two 
Parliamentary decrees against him, one in 1634, and the 
other in 1638, which ordered M. de Montbazon to give 
him an account of his wardship, return him a sum of 
90,000 Ihres due on a certain property called Briolay, and 
pay up the arrears of the annual income of 3000 livres 
which the Duke had undertaken to give his son when 
he married. M. de Montbazon sent no reply. Gu^m^n6 
appealed to the King in Council, and three decrees, issued 
in 1639, 1640 and 1654, ordered the whole dispute between 

308 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

father and son to be submitted to Parliament. Thereupon 
the son had taken possession of the Castle of Rochefort- 
en-Yveline, which was his father's property. 

Then Mme. de Chevreuse, following her brother's 
example, had called on the old Duke to pay her the dowry 
promised in her marriage contract, and which she had 
never received — 200,000 livres— besides the 10,000 livres a 
year which were to have been taken out of the fortunes 
left by her mother, a Lenoncourt, and her grandmother, 
a Laval. If her father, she said, would pay over these 
200,000 livres at once, as an advance on what she was to 
inherit at his death, she would not ask him for the accounts 
of his wardship. M. de Montbazon had agreed. As to 
the inheritance from the mother and grandmother, which, 
it had been proved, did not bring in much more than 8000 
livres in the year, it had been decided under arbitration, 
in December, 1647, that M. de Montbazon must make up 
the sum of 10,000 livres in question. But he had never 
paid his daughter either the 10,000 livres a year or the 
200,000 livres down. Once more Mme. de Chevreuse 
appealed to the Courts of Law. By a decision of the 
Court of Requests delivered in 165 1, the father was ordered 
to pay the yearly income he owed, and further, to pay the 
200,000 livres, principal and interest, which, with divers 
other sums due, amounted in all to 600,000 livres. Mont- 
bazon appealed against this sentence, and an arrangement 
was made according to which the father gave his daughter 
a temporary indemnity, Hy making over to her certain 
properties in Anjou and Touraine, and in the neighbour- 
hood of Montbazon, and also Couzi^res, arid the Hotel de 
Montbazon in Paris. When Mme. de Chevreuse tried to 
take possession of these properties, she found they were 
already in the hands of various creditors. More and more 
lawsuits ensued, to the joy and delight of the lawyers : 
one to establish the priority of Marie de Rohan's claim, 
another for the withdrawal of the seizure, another to have 

309 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

the properties sold, decrees of all kinds, etc. M. de Mont- 
bazon was dead before the inextricable tangle of disputes 
was cleared up. 

By his second marriage with the beautiful Mme. de Mont- 
bazon, the Duke had had three children, who were joint 
heirs with Mme. de Chevreuse and the Prince de Guemene. 
When the inventory of his property was taken, after his 
death, it was discovered that the Duchy of Montbazon was 
in the hands of his creditors, that Rochefort was held by 
Gu6m6n6, the Hotel de Montbazon in Paris by more 
creditors; Couzi^res and the lands in Anjou were in the 
hands of the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and the value of all 
together scarcely reached 200,000 livres. There was no 
ready money at all : 45,000 crowns which had remained 
over from the sum paid to M. de Montbazon to indemnify 
him for the loss of his post as Governor of Paris, the 
jewels, the silver plate, had all disappeared. The family 
accused Mme. de Montbazon of having stolen them. It 
had been necessary to sell the furniture to pay the funeral 
expenses, and those of putting on the seals and having 
the inventory made. 

Each of the heirs — the Prince de Guemene, the Duchesse 
de Chevreuse, Mme. de Montbazon and her three children, 
and some four or five score of creditors — put in a statement 
of claim : these came to a total of 1 ,600,000 livres, 200,000 
of which were owing to the creditors : the debts exceeded 
the assets. 

An attack on Mme. de Montbazon followed : she it was 
who had squandered her husband's substance ! She must 
be made to "give a true account of all debts incurred since 
her marriage, and honestly set forth a list of all the title- 
deeds, documents, precious furniture, jewels, silver plate, 
and the 45,000 crowns she had made away with ! " The 
Prince de Gu6m6n6 demanded the accounts of his ward- 
ship from the year 1602 ; Mme. de Chevreuse was willing 
to adhere to the arrangement concluded with her father, 

310 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

on condition she was paid the indemnities promised her. 
The difficulties were not to end here. 

M. de Montbazon had left a will by which he desired his 
son, the Prince de Guem^ne, to pay the children of his 
second marriage a sum of 200,000 livres, to be charged 
on the value of the offices the King had bestowed on M. de 
Montbazon, and which he had resigned into Gu^m^n^'s 
hands — the government of Nantes, worth 200,000 livres ; 
that of the lie de France, which brought in 85,000 crowns; 
the office of Master of the King's Hunt, 100,000 crowns 
about 800,000 livres in all. Mme. de Chevreuse, perceiving 
her father's assets would never furnish the 200,000 livfes 
and the yearly income to which she was entitled, forthwith 
cast her eyes on these 800,000 livres, and prayed Parliament 
to order that her claim, too, should be charged upon that 
sum. She began a lawsuit with her brother, and Gu^m^ne 
appealed to the King. The King, by a decree of his 
Council, made answer that he did not intend that offices 
of honour bestowed by him, in pure kindness, should be 
reckoned as forming part of any private fortune, "lest," 
he said, "the division of such benefits should diminish the 
gratitude felt for them." Mme. de Chevreuse had lost her 
cause. But Guemene, furious at the trick his sister had 
played him, was to take yet another vengeance upon her. 

When the Duchess had claimed the yearly income drawn 
from the fortunes of her mother and grandmother, and 
promised her by her marriage contract, together with the 
dowry also specified in that document, an arrangement had 
been come to, on February 20, 1654, whereby everything 
was to be settled by the payment by M. de Montbazon 
of a sum fixed at 440,000 livres, and his daughter had at 
once taken a mortgage for that amount on her father's 
property. When th?' settlement of the paternal succession 
began, she asserted her right to a prior claim over all the 
other creditors, and demanded full payment out of the 
assets, before anybody else could touch them. 

311 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Then Gu6mene asserted that he, too, must be allowed 
to take "his legitimate fortune" out of the assets before 
anybody else, and even declared that, as the eldest son, 
he could insist on having it "out of what had been given 
to the said Lady Duchess of Chevreuse." They went to 
law again. Mme. de Chevreuse replied that as the Prince, 
her brother, had received offices worth 800,000 livres from 
their father, he ought to take his "legitimate fortune" out 
of that sum. "If the value of the said offices and govern- 
ments did not suffice," she added, "the surplus ought to 
be taken out of the donations made to the children of the 
second marriage of the said Due de Montbazon." But 
then the children of the second marriage arose in their 
wrath. By a writ served on March 23, 1655, they called 
on Guem^n6 to pay them the 200,000 livres left them by 
M. de Montbazon 's will, and to be taken out of the 800,000 
livres furnished by the offices made over by their late 
father to the Prince. We have already related that 
Guem^n6 had appealed to the King, who would not allow 
the value of offices conferred by his favour to be reckoned 
in any succession. Mme. de Chevreuse was to go on 
bringing lawsuit after lawsuit in every court, and the 
litigation was to grow more and more complicated. 

Meanwhile, Mme. de Montbazon had died. She passed 
away rather suddenly in April, 1657, killed by an attack 
of suppressed measles, after barely two days' illness, and 
in her forty-eighth year. To the very end of her life she 
was immensely admired. My readers may be acquainted 
with the story, which has, indeed, been contradicted, 
according to which M. de Ranee, her last lover, came 
into the death-chamber, and found the head of the corpse 
severed from the trunk, because the coffin had been made 
too small to allow of the body being laid in it intact. 
So horrified was de Ranc^ by this unexpected sight that 
he became a monk, and the ultimate founder of La Trappe. 
Mme. de Montbazon left a daughter of seventeen, Anne 

312 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

de Rohan, a charming young creature, dearly loved by 
Mme. de Chevreuse, who took her to live with her : she 
had practically brought her up. The young girl set her 
affections on a' cloistered life, and became a novice. 

The death of Mme. de Montbazon created fresh diffi- 
culties. But the affairs of Mme. de Chevreuse were much 
more seriously affected by the death of her husband, the 
old Due de Chevreuse, who had been suddenly carried off 
three months previously, in January 1657, by an attack of 
apoplexy. 

Up to that time M. de Chevreuse, in spite of his eighty 
years, had enjoyed fairly good health. He had completely 
recovered from a first attack, which had left him, so he 
said, "as well and hearty as if he had been five-and- 
twenty." His appetite was good, he loved dainty food, 
and, so Tallemant assures us, he still had a weakness for 
the fair sex. He was considered rather frivolous. Though 
he had grown more and more deaf, and was afflicted, in 
general society, with certain weaknesses which made the 
young folks laugh, he still led a merry life, and, as Monglat 
tells us, "thought of nothing but his pleasures." There 
was a story that even when he had reached his seventieth 
year he would have " pretty dears " brought to the castle 
of Dampierre, and that after supper he was in the habit 
of paying nightly visits to "some creature or other" in 
the neighbourhood of Saint Thomas du Louvre. He was 
buried in the Carmelite Church. He had not been a very 
conspicuous figure when he was alive, and he left no 
particular void after his death. 

If he had not been as horrified as he ought by his wife's 
ill-conduct, she had certainly suffered a world of vexation 
on account of his unbusinesslike habits. M. de Chevreuse 
did not know what order meant. He expected his house to 
be invariably well kept, his table well served, his stables 
full of fine horses, and it never occurred to him to consider 
whether he was in a position to pay for it all or not. 

313 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Then, every now and then, he would be seized with some 
ruinously expensive fancy, such as to have fifteen coaches 
built at once, so as to choose the one that ran the most 
smoothly ! 

As a consequence of all this dissipation, he was over head 
and ears in debt quite early in his life. His whole exist- 
ence was one long fight with his creditors. His lawsuits 
were countless. His creditors seized his goods a full score 
of times. He was in perpetual need of money, and would 
borrow, and sell anything, at any price, to get the where- 
withal to carry on. "You must know," wrote du Dorat 
to Boispill6 on July 9, 1638, "that Monseigneur the Duke 
is well in health, better provided with ready money at this 
present moment than when you went away, for he has 
sold two horses to Mme. de Choisy. It is no news to you, 
it is true, to hear he has been selling, but the miracle is 
to hear that Mme, de Choisy has given 600 livres for two 
sorry beasts, and an unheard-of thing that any woman of 
the Place Royale should have given money to M. de 
Chevreuse ! This leads me to judge that when you come 
back you will find him very much changed." 

Landed properties, pensions, fiefs, the bailiffs laid hands 
on them all ! Then M. de Chevreuse appealed to Riche- 
lieu, entreating him to move Parliament, through the 
Chancellor, to grant him release from these seizures. 
"Monsieur," he wrote to the Minister, "hearing that the 
Chancellor is at Rueil, I have seized this moment to come 
and pray your Eminence to remember my very humble 
supplication. I am constrained to be importunate, for I 
am sorely pressed ! I beseech you to take pity on me ! " 
But Richelieu replied that M. de Chevreuse must pay what 
he owed ! In 1640, when the Duke offered to go to England 
and fetch his wife home, he asked the Government to 
release the mortgages on his pensions as a reward, and 
even assured the Secretaries of State that the Cardinal had 
promised him this satisfaction in Boispille's presence. "I 

314 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

never said one word about the release of his pensions, 
either to M. de Chevreuse or to his people," wrote the 
angry Cardinal, sharply, to Chavigny; "on the contrary, 
I have always said that the King intended him to draw 
them, but not until the reparation (payment of his debts) 
had been made. If he wishes to be dishonest, like his 
wife, he can, but my opinion is that nothing should be 
given him till his journey is over. I recommend you to 
speak sharply to Boispill6 ; after that they can do as they 
like— that is to say, they can go or stay, just as they 
choose ! " 

The Duke was reduced to living on borrowed money. 
In a humble petition to Richelieu, sent in 1640, he sadly 
explained that for the last six years more than 80,000 livres 
of his yearly income had been sequestrated. As a result, 
he avowed himself "extremely inconvenienced and needy." 
"All his fortune having been actually seized, he had been 
forced to live on credit and borrowed money almost the 
whole of that time." And he begged he might have an 
advance of ten or twelve thousand crowns on the revenues 
of his offices. He was miserably poor ! 

So miserably poor, indeed, that Mme. de Chevreuse 
resolved, in her exasperation, to ask for a separate main- 
tenance ! M. de Chevreuse, who declared his wife was as 
great a spendthrift as himself, was furious. The suit for 
this separation was begun in the course of the year 1637. 
Mme. de Chevreuse was then living in exile at Couzieres : 
she had confided the care of her business affairs to Catinat, 
the Lieutenant-General of Tours; and her correspondence 
with Paris, for this particular matter, was carried by a 
man of the name of Mazelle. "Mazelle," confessed La 
Porte, in the course of one of his cross-examinations, "only 
went to Paris in secret because M. de Chevreuse had 
threatened to thrash him for mixing himself up in the 
lawsuit Mme. de Chevreuse had brought against him." 
La Porte further said that Mazelle had been commissioned 

315 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

by the Duchess to obtain the Queen's support, so that the 
judges might be induced to pronounce in her favour; and, 
as a matter of fact, Anne of Austria did request du Dorat 
to take the necessary steps in her name. 

There was much angry discussion. Mme. de Chevreuse 
claimed that her husband was bound to pay every penny of 
their common debts. These were many and various. The 
Duke and the Duchess both owed money in all directions : 
money for advances made by, and wages that had never 
been paid to, their former stewards, Clercelier and Fosse, 
who had been fain to accept a yearly income instead of the 
sums they should have received ; another annual sum due 
to Prou, one of their purveyors — the interest of money he 
had advanced them; 30,000 livres to a certain M. Morant; 
14,508 to a M. de Montmort; 40,000 livres to MM. le 
Li^vre and Lhuilier; 500 livres a year to M. M^nardeau, 
and ever so many others ! Besides all this, Mme. de 
Chevreuse claimed a fairly long list of sums, which reached 
a total close on 500,000 livres, and two annual payments, 
one of 10,000 livres for herself, and the other of 6000 livres 
for the support of her daughter. And she expected to 
retain possession of the Hotel de Chevreuse. M. de Chev- 
reuse sent in statement after statement, fought every 
claim, poured forth explanations. 

Towards the end of 1637, sentence was pronounced. 
Parliament assigned the Duchess a yearly pension of 8000 
livres "for her food," 5000 livres for the support of her 
daughter, and possession of the Hotel de Chevreuse, on 
condition she paid her husband a reasonable sum to 
reimburse him for his expenditure on the enlargement and 
embellishment of the house. As to the debts, the court 
held the Duchess to be as responsible as the Duke for the 
confusion in the family finances, and declared the husband 
and wife to be bound, "jointly and severally," to pay all 
they owed. It was a heavy charge, and was to cause 
endless difficulties ! As regarded the capital sum, Par- 

316 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

liament gave the Duchess what she had asked — 500,000 
livres. 

Quite unmoved, M. de Chevreuse quietly went on living 
in the Hotel de Chevreuse — his wife was in England — 
without paying any rent. The separation had done him 
one good turn — the expense of upkeep was no longer cast 
on him. He did not pay the Duchess the 500,000 livres 
he owed her, nor the yearly income of 8000 livres, nor the 
5000 livres for his daughter's expenses. And he was 
perfectly delighted, because whenever creditors came and 
worried him for money, he referred them to his wife. 

So the howling mob of creditors fell upon Mme. de 
Chevreuse. She could not pay them any more than her 
husband; she tried to quiet the most impatient by giving 
them instalments — 11,540 livres to M. de Boissise, and a 
sum to M. Menardeau which released her from the payment 
of his 500 livres a year. But these were mere palliatives. 
They all banded themselves together, and the bailiffs laid 
hands on the Duchess's belongings, 

Thus they lived on for years, in the most utter con- 
fusion : how, one hardly knows; Mme. de Chevreuse was 
generally an exile, outside the borders of France, living 
on borrowed money and subventions sent her by the 
Spaniards; M. de Chevreuse lived at home, on the small 
remnants of his income : the Duchy of Chevreuse, which, 
as he himself had pointed out, brought him in but little — 
so much of it returned nothing at all, the revenues had 
been so diminished by the wars, the repairs to buildings, 
the wages of officials, the upkeep of Dampierre, all made 
such heavy inroads on what it did return ; a pension of 
40,000 livres a year, charged on the five big farms; some 
scraps of charges bestowed by the King on the Abbeys of 
Corbie, Saint-R6my de Reims and Saint-Denis — precarious 
all of them, irregularly and incompletely paid, and 
frequently seized by his creditors into the bargain. 

When Mme. de Chevreuse returned to Paris — it was in 

317 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

1652— the husband and wife decided to look into their 
affairs. They did not know how to find means of support ; 
it was impossible to go on in this fashion. The tradesmen 
constantly refused supplies, and violent scenes took place, 
in the course of which M. de Chevreuse used to lose all 
self-control, and even go so far as to threaten his wife. 
A letter to Mazarin, dated February 7, 1652, contains the 
following passage : " Never has the Duchesse de Chevreuse 
been so much troubled by her husband's outbursts : he 
falls into perfect furies. He has horrible requests all ready 
to put forward against her, and claims the power to have 
her arrested if he chooses, on the authority of the [mar- 
riage] sacrament ! " After lengthy debate, an agreement 
was reached in the month of March. Mme. de Chevreuse, 
" to arrange matters by the ways of gentleness and decorum, 
and so enjoy peace in the house," so ran the deed, agreed 
to reduce her claim of 500,000 livres to one of 400,000 : she 
even consented to the payment of this sum after the Duke's 
death— she or her heirs would wait till that occurred. In 
return, M. de Chevreuse was to give his wife an income 
of 20,000 livres a year, charged on the 40,000 livres brought 
in by the five big farms ; and he undertook to be responsible 
for all debts, including those "jointly incurred since their 
separation." 

M. de Chevreuse did not adhere to this arrangement any 
more than he had adhered to its predecessors. He paid 
nothing whatever, save a few notes of hand which never 
brought in any money at all. Two years later the Duchess, 
once more in the bailiffs' hands, appealed to Parlia- 
ment. Between the advances she had made to creditors, 
and her own income, which was still owing, as well as her 
daughter's yearly income, over 71,540 livres were due to 
her from her husband. In her formal prater she feigned, 
to save the Duke's feelings, to ascribe this state of things 
to ill-will on the part of some subordinate. "Seeing," she 
said, "that the Duke's affairs remained in a state of con- 

318 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

fusion which made it impossible to clear up the debts, or 
the spending of the income, thanks to the dangerous con- 
duct of the person who had the management of them, and 
who, taking advantage of the weakness of the said Sieur 
de Chevreuse, had always put oft' the payment of all these 
debts, she had found it impossible any longer to endure 
the embarrassments in which she was left by the said Sieur 
de Chevreuse, without appealing to the law to force him to 
carry out the said transaction honestly." And she went 
on to announce her intention of seizing the duchy of 
Chevreuse ! 

Then M. de Chevreuse made a sharp thrust in return. 
When the agreement had been made in 1652, he asserted, 
the rents for that year, on which his wife's income of 
20,000 Iwres was to be charged, had already been divided 
amongst his creditors. For the year 1653 he had given 
her bills on the rents for 1654. At that moment (July, 
1654) the Duchess had received the two first quarterly 
payments, she was to receive the third on July 15, and the 
fourth when it fell due, in October. The income for 1654 
would be supplied by means of bills drawn on the rents 
to be paid in 1655. Let Mme. de Chevreuse observe, 
moaned the Duke, that "the said gentleman was giving 
her and the creditors the bulk of his income, all that 
remained being the income on benefices which had brought 
in nothing for the last eight years and more." As for the 
revenues of the duchy of Chevreuse, these were well known 
— they were almost nil. All these reasons, concluded M. de 
Chevreuse, made it impossible for him to pay the income 
due for the year 1654 ^^ ^^7 other way. 

Then he gave a list of the creditors who were pursuing 
him, related what he had done to quiet them, set forth 
what he proposed to do, so as to give them satisfaction. 
"And here," wrote the person who had drawn up the 
document, "is the true statement of the pretensions of my 
said Lady, and the reasons of Monseigneur, according to 

319 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

which there is no appearance leading to the carrying of 
the matter to such an extremity as to desire to strip Mon- 
seigneur of his duchy, and by an absolute execution, to 
take judicial proceedings as to the small fortune he can 
now enjoy to pay his expenses, seeing the pensions on the 
benefices are growing continually less, and as to the rents 
of his five big farms, the said Lady takes one half, and 
the rest goes to his creditors." 

Mme. de Chevreuse, thus pinched between her own diffi- 
culties and her husband's, and sorely puzzled to know what 
she should do, addressed herself to Siguier, the Chancellor. 
In September, 1654, she sent him a detailed memorandum, 
setting forth her state of penury, her extreme poverty, 
and telling him that instead of the income her husband 
was bound to pay her, he had sent her bills only payable 
at dates a long way ahead. Live she m.ust, somehow ! She 
had been forced to borrow from her tradesmen, and give 
them bills charged on those five big farms ! She spoke of 
the creditors who were always upon her heels, tormenting 
her, threatening her with executions. Could any woman 
be in a' more miserable position ? And she besought the 
Chancellor to come to her rescue, "because of the necessity 
to which she was reduced, seeing she had nothing in the 
world but the 400,000 livres M. de Chevreuse owed her that 
could bring her in any income at all." 

Then an idea flashed across the man of business who 
was in the habit of advising the Duchess. Why should 
not M. de Chevreuse sell his duchy to his wife? This 
transaction would solve all the difficulties : the Duke would 
be relieved of the engagements he had made as to the 
Duchess; he might, if he chose, continue to enjoy the use 
of Dampierre, just as he enjoyed the use of the house in 
the Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre. The 'causes of dis- 
agreement would thus be eliminated. But how, indeed, 
was Mme. de Chevreuse, who had not a crown to her name, 
to pay for the duchy? That difficulty might be solved, 

320 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

perhaps, by borrowing the money. Mme. de Chevreuse 
agreed to the plan, and after a long period of reflection 
M. de Chevreuse consented as well : so the duchy was 
sold to Marie de Rohan. 

The deed was signed in the presence of the notaries, 
Ogier and Gallois, on October 15, 1655, at the house in 
the Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre, in which the couple still 
lived. The advisers of Mme. de Chevreuse had skilfully 
secured their client's interests; the Duke's had defended 
his with much talent. 

By the deed, M. de Chevreuse made over the separate 
ownership of the whole duchy to his wife, with the excep- 
tion of 550 acres of woodland, sold to M. de Montmort, 
the castellany of Chateauneuf, its fiefs and dependencies, 
together with the farm of Oinvilliers and 34 acres of wood, 
which had been sold to a M. de Montrouillon. The Duke 
reserved his title of Duke and Peer for life, and likewise 
his right to exercise justice over the whole of the duchy 
from which he took his name. After his death, Mme. de 
Chevreuse was to have power to ask the King to grant her 
letters-patent either continuing the dukedom, or creating 
another dukedom and peerage, in favour of her son, the 
Due de Luynes, or her grandson, the Marquis d'Albert. 

M. de Chevreuse transferred Dampierre to his wife, 
together with all the furniture in it, but not the silver plate. 
He was to have the enjoyment, for all the rest of his life, 
of the castle, "buildings, poultry-yard, edifices, gardens, 
canals, fountains, ponds and parks of the said place." He 
was to keep it up at his own expense, and the walls round 
it as well. 

The price Mme. de Chevreuse was to pay comprised 
certain conditions of a complicated nature. In the first 
place she was to give her husband 1,030,000 livres ; then 
she was to undertake to defray various expenses : to repay 
to a certain Mile. Boisset the price of the offices of clerk and 
tabellion at Chevreuse; to pay all the wages of the forest- 
Y 321 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

wardens, lieutenant, woodmen, bailiff and fiscal attorney 
of the duchy; to see that 200 livres a year were sent to 
the Augustines in Paris, or to the Dames des Hautes- 
Bruyeres de Port-Royal ; 495 livres to the parish priest 
and church at Dampierre ; to send the prior of Chevreuse 
three hogsheads of wine and three sellers of wheat yearly ; 
the wood off seven acres of forest to MM. de Montmort and 
de Meridon, and so forth. M. de Chevreuse was released 
from all and every obligation to his wife, whether incurred 
by marriage contract or by any subsequent arrangement. 

Then out of the million of livres due to the Duke, the 
notaries took the following sums: the 400,000 livres M. 
de Chevreuse owed his wife, according to the agreement 
made in March 1652; and 20,000 livres representing the 
interest on that sum for the year 1654; various sums paid 
out by the Duchess to her husband's creditors : 8720 livres 
to MM. Gratien and Menardeau ; 1500 to a Mme. le 
Coigneux; sixty to Remond, a notary; 514 for duties on 
spices and interest thereupon. The original sum was 
reduced, one way or another, to 600,000 livres. Of these 
600,000 livres Mme. de Chevreuse was to pay her husband 
280,000 within eight days ; but so as to have a quiet mind 
as to the creditors, she made a proviso that this money 
should "be instantly employed, as Monseigneur the Duke 
promised and bound himself to do, in the presence of the 
said lady, or of the person named by her, for the payment 
and acquitting of the debts he was obliged to pay, as my 
said lord shall be advised : my said lady being jointly 
and severally responsible for them with the said lord." 
A sum of 320,000 livres would be left over; and until that 
was completely paid off — for which the parties would have 
to wait till better times — Mme. de Chevreuse was to pay 
the Duke interest on it at the rate of five per cent. Taking 
it all together, M. de Chevreuse was not to receive a single 
crown of the purchase money. 

But the arrangement, on the whole, was not a bad one for 

322 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

either party. M. de Chevreuse kept his title, he kept the 
use of Dampierre, he was rid of the disputes with his wife, 
to whom he no longer owed a sou; he could enjoy his 
income from the five big farms in peace, and need not give 
the Duchess anything out of it. Mme. de Chevreuse, on 
her side, had acquired a huge property at a fairly moderate 
price. Both parties were pleased. 

The 280,000 livres the Duchess had undertaken to pay 
down, had to be raised. But with the duchy to raise them 
on, it was not likely that lenders would be difficult to find. 
The Duchess's advisers and her son, the Due de Luynes, 
looked about them. In consideration of certain yearly 
payments and mortgages, seven persons agreed to advance 
the money, M. de Luynes undertaking to share his 
mother's responsibility, and guaranteeing the payment of 
interest at the rate of five per cent. In the list of these 
lenders we find the Port-Royal, and certain adherents 
of that religious house. "The ladies, abbess, and nuns 
of Port-Royal" lent 40,000 livres: Simond Arnauld de 
Pomponne, second son of Arnauld d'Andilly, lent 40,000 
too : Jean Hamelin, Comptroller-General of Bridges and 
Highways within the generalship of Paris, who hid 
Arnauld and Nicole in his house, advanced 60,000 livres: 
then a M. Leger Meunier, a former Master of Accounts, 
lent 28,000 livres: Mme. Antoinette de Beaucler, widow of 
M. Fran9ois de Rochechouart, 18,000: and the House of 
the Institution of the Oratory of Jesus Christ our Saviour, 
founded in the Faubourg Saint-Michel by M. Pinet, 22,000 
livres. All these sums only made up a total of 248,000 
livres. The difference, 32,000 livres, was kept back by 
Mme. de Chevreuse for interest due to her and the pay- 
ment of various accounts. On November 22, 1655, the 
Duke's secretray, Jean Moron, duly provided with his 
master's power of attorney, received the 248,000 livres in 
his name; he signed the receipt at the Hotel de Chev- 
reuse in the presence of the two notaries, Ogier and 

323 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Gallois, and added the promise, already embodied in the 
deed of purchase, that the money should be forthwith used 
for the payment of the Duke's debts. Four months later, 
Mme. de Chevreuse, in accordance with the rights of those 
times, took the oath of allegiance to the King in the 
presence of the Chancellor, Seguier : "pour raison du 
Duche de Chevreuse, ses appartenances et dependances, 
circonstantes et annexees, tenues et mouvant de nous," so 
ran the letters-patent from Louis XIV, "a cause de la 
grosse tour de notre chateau du Louvre." The financial 
difficulties with the Duke were over. Husband and wife 
were now free to enjoy their hard-won quietness of 
mind in peace : but this enjoyment was to be of short 
duration : the very next year, M. de Chevreuse breathed 
his last ! 

Widowed, Mme. de Chevreuse found herself in a most 
difficult position. Her household expenses were too heavy 
for her, her habits far too lavish and sumptuous. She 
was forced to cut down her expenditure. Desiring above 
all things to keep Dampierre, she made up her mind to sell 
the Hotel de Chevreuse in Paris. It was a painful thing 
to do. The house was sold, in 1657, to the Due de Candale, 
for his father, the Due d'Epernon ; the price given was 
400,000 livres. M. de Luynes had bought it for 175,000 
livres: he had thrown another house, for which he paid 
24,000 livres, into the larger one, and carried the gardens 
right down to the ramparts, thanks to Louis XIII, who 
bestowed a piece of land on him for that purpose. Mme. 
de Chevreuse had already sold the house once, to her 
second husband, the Due de Chevreuse, in 1622, for 
180,000 livres: and this second time, with all the improve- 
ments the Duke had added to the mansion, she was 
obtaining a price that amounted to more than double that 
sum. From that time forward, as though fated never to 
find another place in all the city where she might lay 

324 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

her head, she was destined to wander hither and thither all 
over Paris. We find her in the Rue de I'Universite, in 
the parish of Saint-Sulpice, in 1658 : in the Rue Git-le- 
Coeur, in the parish of Saint-Andre-des-Arts, in 1660 : in 
the Rue Saint-Dominique, in the parish of Saint-Sulpice, 
again, in 1663. Age, worries, money difficulties, were to 
weigh heavier on her, year by year. 

She still retained indeed, the yearly income of 40,600 
livres which her husband had received from the five big 
farms ! But this income did not suffice for her wants. 
By letters-patent, dated March 19, 1658, the King had 
consented to allow her the enjoyment of the County of 
Charolais and the Barony of the Mont Saint-Vincent, with 
their mills and ponds and other appurtenances, which 
belonged to the King of Spain, to indemnify her for the 
loss, by Spanish confiscation, of certain properties she had 
bought in Flanders, at Karpen and Lommerein : even this 
did not clear her difficulties away. 

Then she tried speculation ; she dreamt of buying an 
island in the Antilles, Martinique ! In a memorandum 
addressed to the King, she set forth that a French Com- 
pany having been formed, in 1626, to colonize the Antilles, 
St. Kitts, Martinique, Guadaloupe, King Louis XIII 
had granted it the government and ownership of these 
islands. But this company had failed, had sold Guada- 
loupe to a M. Houel, who had been governor of the island, 
Martinique to a M. Duparquet, and St. Kitts to the 
Knights of the Order of Malta. Being desirous, now, of 
buying Martinique from M. Duparquet's heirs, Mme. de 
Chevreuse prayed His Majesty to grant her the same 
privileges as those he had allowed the Knights in St. 
Kitts, that is to say, sovereign rights, except as to the 
duty of doing homage, and of presenting a crown of gold 
to each sovereign, on his accession. Louis XIV refused 
the petition, and nothing more came of the business. 

Mme. de Chevreuse still owned the duchy of Chevreuse ! 

325 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

But it was a heavy burden on her ! She had to reconcile 
the necessity of keeping up the dignity of her rank with 
that of meeting the outlay inseparable from the manage- 
ment of so important a property. Once more the Duchess 
found herself up to her ears in debt, with creditors 
harrying her on every side. Then it occurred to her that 
she might sell Chevreuse and Dampierre, and "free 
herself," as she said, "from the cares the possession of 
such great domains brought on her, and also provide for 
the payment of what she owed, so as to live, in future, in 
greater peace and quietness." But how could she part 
with this dwelling, to which she was so much attached, in 
which she had lived for forty years, which teemed with so 
many memories? 

She conceived the idea of simply making over Dampierre 
and Chevreuse to her son, the Due de Luynes. In return, 
M. de Luynes was to pay his mother's debts, and give 
her an annual income of 20,000 livres — the Duchess, 
like the late Duke, retaining her right to the use of the 
castle as long as she lived. The Due de Luynes consented. 
The deed, which was signed on March i, 1663, in the pres- 
ence of MM. le Carron and Gallois, notaries, stated that 
the gift was made as an instalment on ultimate inheritance, 
to date from the following Saint John the Baptist's Day : 
Mme. de Chevreuse reserved herself the use of "lodging for 
herself and her people," at Dampierre, "whenever she 
chose to go thither, and the use of her furniture there." 

Four months later, on September 9, 1663, M. de Luynes 
handed over the title and property of Chevreuse, by deed 
of gift, to his own son, Charles-Honore d'Albert, reserv- 
ing to himself, even as his mother and his step-father had 
done, the enjoyment for life of "the castle, poultry-yards 
and other lodgings, together with the gardens, flower- 
lawns, canals, ponds, and all other things enclosed within 
the park of Dampierre." So fondly did every member of 
this family cling to the beloved spot ! He undertook to 

326 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

keep it all up, plantations, fountains, canals, boundary 
walls. And to balance this, the grandson, the Marquis 
d'Albert, was to pay his grandmother's debts — the Due 
de Luynes had paid 49,000 livres for her already — and 
give Mme. de Chevreuse her annual income of 20,000 
livres. 

As the Due de Chevreuse had died without leaving a 
son, his peerage, according to the letters-patent of 161 2, 
had died with him, and the duchy alone, unless the King 
were to will it otherwise, could pass to another person. 
Louis XIV ratified the donation of the duchy, and 
maintained the ducal title of its new owner ; but he did not 
recreate the peerage. 

And thus it came about that in her old age the children 
Mme. de Chevreuse had borne to Luynes, the only male 
children she ever had, ensured the peace and quiet- 
ness of her declining years. She was proud of these 
children — of her grandson, at least, in whom the brilliant 
and warlike qualities of his ancestors of the preceding 
century lived again ! 

Her son gave her less satisfaction. She considered 
M. de Luynes, a fervent supporter of the Jansenists, whose 
wife, a Seguier, was as ardent as he in her friendship for 
the nuns of Port-Royal, to be over-devout, and "furiously 
degenerate." He had built a little country-house at 
Vaumurier, close to the Monastery of Port-Royal-des- 
Champs, to be near the nuns, and thither he would retire 
with his wife, and live in isolation and in silence, rising 
in the middle of the night, saying the prescribed prayers, 
giving all he had to the poor. "The Jansenists did every- 
thing in his house," says Tallemant. He was called the 
nuns' "Constable." Mme. de Luynes, always a delicate 
woman, died, on September 13, 1651, at the age of twenty- 
seven, leaving four children, M. de Luynes returned to 
the social world. Six years later, he fell in love with his 
own half-aunt, Anne de Rohan, daughter of Mme. de 

327 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Montbazon, who lived with Mme. de Chevreuse. His 
mother was sorely perturbed, for Anne de Rohan desired 
to enter the religious life, and had already become a 
novice. "Mme. de Chevreuse," writes Saint-Simon, "who 
dreaded the idea of her son's returning to his retreat at 
Vaumurier, had been so afraid his despair at not being 
able to possess the object of his passion might drive him 
back into seclusion, that she urged her half-sister to put 
off her white veil, and by dint of money, with which, at 
Rome, all things can be done, obtained a dispensation for 
the marriage, which she arranged in 1661, and which was a 
very happy one." The couple were to have seven children. 
When Anne died, in 1684, at the age of forty-four, M. de 
Luynes married for the third time : his wife was Marguerite 
d'Aligre, As Sainte-Beuve says, he was a vir uxorius, he 
loved the married state. Bussy-Rabutin tells us that after 
he had married Anne de Rohan, "Mme. de Chevreuse, 
whose person, after having been the temple of all 
delights, had now become their tomb, not being in a 
position to do anything for herself, put forward Mme. de 
Luynes, who is one of the most beautiful women in 
France," in the hope of her supplanting Mile, de la 
Valliere in the affections of Louis XIV ! The source of 
this piece of information leads us to suspect its reliability. 
If correct, it would prove how little Mme. de Chevreuse 
can have esteemed her own son ! 

Her grandson was far dearer to her. Though he had 
been brought up in the Port-Royal atmosphere, and more 
particularly by Lancelot — the " Logique " of Port-Royal 
had been specially written for his benefit — the Marquis 
d'Albert was much less ruled by the Jansenists than his 
father. He was a man of action, devoted to the career of 
arms, and had done brilliant service in the Flemish cam- 
paigns, during which he had been wounded : in him his 
grandmother recognized her own natural activity, her 
longing to attract attention, to display her power, to attain 

328 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

her ends. He was to gratify her most ardent desires by 
making a splendid and weaUhy marriage, with the 
daughter of Colbert. 

There was talk of this alliance as early as in the year 
1666. "There is a report of another marriage at Court," 
wrote Guy Patin, on December 29, "that of the daughter 
of M. Colbert, who is now xa Travxa Ccesaris, with M. le 
Due de Chevreuse, who is the son of the Due de Luynes, 
and grandson of the Constable, M. Colbert, who is the 
son of a shopkeeper, has become a great lord, and, though 
unseen, rules the whole of Europe ; at any rate he is, as it 
were, the master of France ! " In a letter to the Due 
de Chaulnes, grand-uncle of Charles-Honore d'Albert, 
Colbert, as though to excuse the fact that he, the cloth- 
worker's heir, should be marrying his daughter to a Duke, 
grandson of a Constable of France, declares that "the 
King, who was much more the father of his children than 
he (Colbert) was himself," had deigned to think of this 
union. Mme. de Chevreuse, he went on to say, had also 
been one of the first persons to whom it had occurred, and 
he concluded as follows : " I assure you that by this means 
I attach myself to the interests of your house, for which 
you will always find my feelings most sincere, and most 
passionate." And this, with a rich dowry, was precisely 
what Mme. de Chevreuse and her grandson most desired. 

In spite of Colbert's assertion, Louis XIV, so Lefevre 
d'Ormesson tells us, would seem to have been more or 
less opposed to the marriage. Colbert, while he fixed his 
choice on the Due de Chevreuse as a husband for Marie, 
his eldest daughter, was thinking of marrying the second, 
Henriette-Louise, to Paul de Beauvilliers, son of the Due 
de Saint-Aignan. This was to set up two very exalted 
claims at once ! However, the King did not persist in 
his opposition : he even made the first advance to Luynes 
himself, "which," as d'Ormesson himself acknowledges, 
"proved how high M. Colbert's credit stood." 

329 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

The wedding ceremony took place on February i, 1667. 
The Archbishop of Paris conferred his benediction on the 
newly married pair in the private chapel in Colbert's house. 
At the subsequent banquet there were three tables, each 
accommodating forty-five guests. "It was an entertaining 
parallel," wrote d'Ormesson again, "all M. de Luynes 
family on one side, and that of M. Colbert on the other. 
M. le Brun told me how magnificent the wedding had 
been ; the Chancellor had been present, and went to the 
supper." Public rumour was already busy with the rich 
benefits the De Luynes family was likely to reap from this 
alliance: M. de Luynes to be appointed Governor of 
Paris, or Guyenne, the Due de Chevreuse to replace 
the Due de Mazarin as Grand Master of the Artillery, 
the Due de Chaulnes to be Governor of Brittany ! 
And if the whole family was provided for now and 
in future, it would all be thanks to the cleverness with 
which Mme. de Chevreuse had ensured her grandson's 
prosperity ! 

She had not troubled herself nearly so much about her 
daughters. There had been four of them : the eldest by 
M. de Luynes, the three others, Anne-Marie, Henriette, 
and Charlotte, by M. de Chevreuse. The only method that 
had occurred to her, to rid herself of the encumbrance her 
children were in her troubled and wandering existence, was 
to make them over to the care of her sister-in-law, the 
Abbess of Jouarre. The best chance for her girls, she thought, 
seeing how sorely embarrassed the family finances had 
become, lay in their being brought up in a convent, where 
they might discover a vocation, and become nuns. 
Unluckily, Mme. de Jouarre died, in 1638, when the 
youngest child was seven, and the eldest twenty. Some 
other home for them had to be found, and Mrtie. de Chev- 
reuse, desiring to place them in the Abbey of Saint- 
Antoine, near Paris, wrote to Richelieu to request the 
King's permission to make this arrangement. Richelieu, 

330 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

not wishing to have the children of the Duchess so near 
the Court, refused : the Superior, he said, would not be the 
mistress of her own house long : the children — the Cardinal 
concluded them to be as turbulent as their mother — 
"would very likely upset the minds of numbers of the 
inhabitants of Saint-Antoine, and they would attract such 
a flow of visitors that it would be one perpetual procession." 
Then Mme. de Chevreuse threw her children on their 
father's hands. M. de Chevreuse did not know what to do 
with them. As a temporary measure, he settled them, 
with the nuns from Jouarre who had conducted them to 
him, at Issy. But here the Archbishop of Paris made 
difficulties : " Monsieur," wrote the Duke to Chavigny, on 
August 17, 1640, "I am in such a quandary about my 
children, that I have been forced, thanks to the violence 
of Monseigneur de Paris, to remove Mile de Luynes and 
my daughters from Issy, and I have sent them to 
Dampierre until it shall please his Eminence to com- 
mand what is to be done with them : if it were his 
pleasure that they should remain on at Issy, and there 
await his will, it would be a great favour to me. Pray do 
me the honour of speaking to him and obtaining a letter 
from him to Monseigneur de Paris, and to the nuns from 
Jouarre who are with them." But it was impossible for 
M. de Chevreuse to keep his daughters at Dampierre 
for ever. He cursed their mother and the worry she 
caused him. Two, at least, of the girls seemed disposed 
to enter conventual life, and the Duke, hearing the 
Superior of the Abbey of Remiremont was far advanced 
in years, was inspired with the idea of sending one of them 
to take the veil in that house, if Richelieu would give him 
a promise that she should be appointed Abbess on the 
death of the present holder of that dignity. The Cardinal 
consented. "Ah! " wrote the Duke, "you are lightening 
the burden of a father whose daughters are a sore hindrance 
to him ! Your Eminence knows wherefore, and all the 

33^ 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

ingratitude of their mother, the losses and the troubles she 
has brought upon me ! " 

The Remiremont plan was destined to fail. The 
eldest daughter, Anne-Marie, did take the veil and 
ultimately became Abbess of Pont-aux-Dames, where she 
died young, in her twenty-eighth year, in 1652 : another 
daughter, Henriette, also became a nun, and Abbess of 
Jouarre, like her own great aunt; she lived into old age, 
till 1693, and had several disputes with Bossuet : the 
youngest, Charlotte, whose tastes were far removed from 
the monastic, returned to her mother, never left her side 
again, and played the part in her life which we have 
already described. As for Mile, de Luynes, she died of the 
small-pox at the age of twenty-eight, in September, 1646. 

Thus, Mme. de Chevreuse, rid of debts, worries, hus- 
band, and children, was free to live at ease. Laigue 
was still with her. "This petty nobleman from Limoges, 
with his 5000 livres a year," as Mazarin scornfully 
described him, was her slave, ruled by an influence 
against which he never essayed to struggle, and so 
accustomed to her that he never left her side. Yet Mme. 
de Chevreuse had but little beauty left ! She had grown 
heavy and thick, her face was puffy and wrinkled, her 
hair was turning grey, her charm was gone ! In his 
Carte Geographique de la Cour, published in 1668, Bussy- 
Rabutin draws a picture of her, not over kind, but which 
would seem to have been fairly truthful: "Chevreuse," 
(the Duchess was then a woman of sixty-eight) "is a large 
fortress, quite ruined now, the quarters in which are all 
unroofed : notwithstanding this, it is fairly strong outside, 
but it is very ill-guarded within : in old days it was 
exceedingly famous and full of traffic; it did business in 
several kingdoms, and the citadel is now qmte in ruins, 
thanks to the many sieges laid to take it. It is reported to 
have frequently surrendered at discretion. The natives are 
very changeable and disagreeable in temper. There have 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

been several governors. At present it is badly provided 
in that respect, for the man in charge is quite good for 
nothing!" Laigue, thus accused of being "good for 
nothing," was fifty-four. 

So completely was his life bound up with that of Mme. 
de Chevreuse, that they were universally believed to be 
united in one of those private marriages, secret, but not 
clandestine, which, we are assured, were not uncommon at 
that period. Saint-Simon has repeated this report. It 
must surely have been a true one, or the relations between 
the two persons concerned must at all events have become 
perfectly irreproachable, for what other explanation can 
be found of the fact that the gentlemen of Port-Royal, so 
severe in their views, accepted Laigue and the Duchess as 
their close friends ? Laigue was constantly with the 
Jansenists, and actively employed about their business. 
In a conversation with Saint-Evremond, which that writer 
has set down, Stuart d'Aubigny, one of the intimate 
associates of the Port-Royal recluses, declared Laigue to 
be at the head of the "political leaders" who were labour- 
ing for the cause. He was one of M. d'Andilly's intimate 
friends, and when that gentleman was accused to the King 
of having fomented disturbances, it was to Laigue and the 
Duchess that he turned to defend him at Court, and they 
did actually make an appeal to the King. Laigue's pious 
affection for Port-Royal is proved by his will, drawn up 
at Dampierre, on July 30, 1658, and still preserved in the 
office of a notary in the town of Chevreuse, in which he 
desires he may be buried in the church of the nuns at 
Port-Royal, bequeaths an income of 3600 livres a year to 
the Convent, and legacies to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, to 
M. d'Andilly, and his son. It is difficult to believe that so 
devout a nobleman can have been living in open sin, or 
that a will of so edifying a nature can have been dated 
from a house in which his presence amounted to a public 
scandal ! 

333 



THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 

Mme. de Chevreuse and Laigue were never to be 
parted in this life. He died before her, on May 19, 1674. 
He was sixty. He was not buried at Port-Royal (circum- 
stances had rendered that impossible), but in the Church of 
the Jacobins in Paris. A monument was placed there to his 
memory, it was destroyed during the Revolution. 

The death of her old friend afflicted the Duchess deeply. 
She had reached her seventy-fourth year, life held no 
further interest for her. She was the survivor of an age 
that had departed, utterly unlike that in which she was 
now living. Forsaken, forgotten, without hope or expecta- 
tion to brighten the future, her only resource was to with- 
draw herself into a seclusion deeper still, and there devote 
her remaining days to preparation for the hour of death. 
She had grown very devout, and found in her religion the 
consolation for which the weary soul, nearing the close of 
life's journey, generally hungers. Her choice fell on a 
deserted Benedictine Priory at Gagny, three leagues and a 
half from Paris, and not far from Chelles, where some of 
her Port-Royal friends — the Akakia family— had been 
Priors since the beginning of the century— the house was 
called the Priory of Saint-Fiacre, or the Maison Rouge. 
A quiet village, numbering some two or three hundred 
inhabitants, clustered round the old church. Thither the 
Duchess came to end her stormy life. She went nowhere, 
spent her days in prayer, and waited for the end. That 
end came to her, in her silence and her solitude, after five 
long years. She passed away on August 12, 1679. 

She was buried, as she had requested, in the simplest 
fashion. There was no pomp, no funeral oration. Her 
corpse was laid near the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, 
in the southern aisle of the church at Gagny. She had 
commanded that her epitaph should be modest and brief, 
there was to be no "princess" nor "tr^s haute et puissante 
dame," nor were her husband's titles to be mentioned in it. 
"Here lies," it ran, "Marie de Rohan, Duchesse de Chev- 

334 



RETIREMENT AND DEATH 

reuse, daughter of Hercule de Rohan, Due de Montbazon. 
Humihty having long since killed in her heart all the 
glory of the century, she forbade the slightest mark of the 
greatness she desired to bury for ever beneath the sim- 
plicity of this tomb to be recalled on the occasion of her 
death." 

Beneath that tomb her body rested till towards the 
middle of the nineteenth century. Since that time, the 
church has been pulled down, and the Priory as well, and 
the ashes of Mme. de Chevreuse have been scattered to 
the winds : the epitaph alone, last remnant of her life-story, 
has been recovered, and is now piously preserved at the 
Castle of Dampierre I 



335 



INDEX 



Aarsens, M., 96 

Abbeville, 71 

Accounts, Court of, 263 

Agen, 184 

Aiguillon, Duchesse d', 278 

Akakia family, the, 334 

Aligre, Marguerite d', 328 

Amiens, 30, 46-7 ; the episode 
at, 64, 67-75 

Andilly, Arnauld d', 305, 323, 333 

Anet, 247, 249 

Angouleme, castle of, 153, 227, 
239, 254 

Angouleme, Due d', the park at 
Grosbois, 43 

Angouleme, Duchesse d', 25 

Anjou, Due d'. See Orleans, Gaston 
d'. 

Anne of Austria, portrait of, 12- 
13 ; favours bestowed on Marie 
de Rohan, 13-16 ; evil influence 
of Mme. de Luynes, 15-19 ; cold- 
ness of the king, 20-1 ; renewed 
friendship with Mme. de Luynes, 
23, 53 ; disappointed of an heir, 
24-5 ; letters from the king, 25, 
46 ; the marriage of Henrietta- 
Maria, 51-2, 53 ; the affair of 
the Earl of Holland, 55-6 ; 
and the Duke of Buckingham, 
56-8, 61-6, 74-5 ; the Amiens 
episode, 67-8, 69-72 ; servants 
of, dismissed by the king, 73 ; 
attitude towards Richelieu, 87, 
88 ; and the Ornano plot, 91- 
93> 94, 96, loi, 113 ; and 
Chalais, 104, 105 ; and Gaston 
d'Orleans, 114-15, 135; on the 
condemnation of Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, 116 ; correspondence with 
Mme. de Chevreuse at Lorraine, 



121-2, 125, 127, 128, 131-4; 
and Montague, 123 ; interven- 
tion on behalf of Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 134; hostility towards 
Marie de Medicis, 137; recon- 
ciliation with Richelieu, 138, 
145 ; intimacy with Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 140, 144-5, ^47) ^54" 
5 ; growing hostility towards the 
Cardinal, 151 ; the parting with 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 154-5 J 
intrigues with Mme. de Chev- 
reuse at Couzi^res, 158-66 ; the 
affair of the Val de Grace, 163, 
165, 169-71 ; confessions to 
Richelieu, 1 71-2 ; forbidden to 
see Mme. de Chevreuse, 174 ; 
warning to Mme. de Chevreuse, 
177 ; and the flight of Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 189 ; renewed friend- 
ship, 194-6 ; the draft letter, 
196-7 ; and Mme. de Chevreuse, 
215 ; her reply to Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 220 ; assumption of 
the Regency, 226-31 ; relations 
with Mazarin, 229-30, 246 ; ex- 
ile of Mme. de Chevreuse, 247- 
9 ; changed feelings towards her, 
231-7 ; reception of the Duch- 
esse, 237 ; refuses to sanction 
the return of Chateauneuf, 238 j 
policy towards Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, 239, 261-2, 269-72 ; and 
Mme. de Montbazon, 243-4 > 
letter to, from Tours, 250-1 ; 
commands regarding the Duch- 
esse's friends, 252 ; and the 
Spanish peace, 259 ; flight from, 
Paris, 260, 263 ; loss of power, 
272 ; reception of Mme. de 
Chevreuse at Compiegne, 273-4 j 



337 



INDEX 



and the Prince de Conde, 281-4; 
favours for Mme. de Chevreuse, 
285-9 ; and the Chevreuse-Conti 
marriage, 291, 296-8 ; release 
of the Princes, 292 ; and flight of 
Mazarin, 293 ; Mazarin's advice 
from Briihl, 298 ; and the Fron- 
deurs, 299-300 ; visit to Dam- 
pierre, 306 ; and the Due de 
Montbazon, 308 ; and Mme. de 
Chevreuse's debts, 316 

Anne, waiting-woman, 179, 180 

Annemets, Bois d', Memoirs quoted, 
67, 96, 99, 102, 105, 107, III- 
12, 115 

Antilles, the, 325 

Ardouin, coachman, 181 

Arnolphini, Don Joseph Illesca, 
266 

Arnoux, P^re, 20 

Artenay, 165 

Aubigny, Stuart d', 333 

Auger, Secretary of the English 
Embassy, 160, 166, 171, 217 

Augustines, the, Paris, 322 

Aumale, M. d', 279 

Auvergne, 89, 122 

Avancourt, 245 

Ax, waters of, 183 

Bagn^res, 183, 185-7 

Barbastro, 187 

Bareges, 185 

Bar-le-Duc, 124, 293 

Barradas, 225 

Barre, La, 246 

Barrois, the, 126 

Bassompierre, Journal cited, 21, 

22, 32, 104 ; intervention on 

behalf of Mme. de Chevreuse, 

43-6 ; in Guyenne, 45 
Bastelica, Sampietro, 90 
Bastille, the, 96, 109 note^ 127, 

128, 166-9, 173, 192, 225, 257 
Bautru, M. de, Ozonandre, 2 ; sent 

to England, 85 ; counsels Mme. 

de Chevreuse, no, 116 
Bayonne, 178 
Beauce, Pont de, 40 
Beaucler, Mme. Antoinette de, 323 



Beaufort, Frangois, Due de, plot 
against Mazarin, 233-4, 236-7, 
244-7 5 3.nd Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, 237, 283 ; and the Mont- 
bazon incident, 242-4 ; arrest, 
247 ; escape, 249-51 ; and the 
Old Fronde, 275, 277; and 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 278 ; and 
the arrest of Conde, 284 

Beaufort- Vendome party named 
" The Importants," 240 

Beaujolais, 89 

Beaupuis, M. de, 244 

Beauregard, no, 115 

Beauvilliers, Paul de, 329 

Becquencourt, chateau of, 40 

Bellegarde, Due de, and Anne, 
18 ; and Claude de Lorraine, 
31 ;^and Chalais, 102 

Belle-lie, 241 

Bellerose, actor, 266 

Bellievre, M. de, French Ambassa- 
dor in London, 198, 200, 202, 
204, 214, 222, 283 

Bellievre, Mme. de, 200 

Bentivoglio, Papal nuncio, 19-20 

Beringhen, M. de, 249 

Bernadets, 185 

Bertech^res, M., 94 

Berulle, reports to Richelieu, 135 

Besangon, town of, 169 

" Bethizy (Prince de)," name given 
to Due de Montbazon, 2 

Biron, Marechal de, 30 

Blagny, Captain, 126 

Blainville, M. de, French Am- 
bassador in London, 35, 78 ; 
warning given to Louis, quoted, 
95-6 

Blaye, 190 

Bleneau, 30X 

Blois, io5, 108 

Boisleve, M. de, 287 

Boispille, M. de, mission to Tours, 
189-90 ; letter from Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 193 ; mission to Lon- 
don, 198-201, ' 204-12 ; letter 
to Richelieu, 210-11, 215 ; and 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 235 ; and 
the Due de Chevreuse, 314-15 



338 



INDEjX 



Boisset, Mile., 321 

Boissise, M. de, 317 

Bonneuil, M. de, 26 

Bordeaux, 125, 190 

Bossuet, 332 

Bouillon, Due de, 249, 258 

Bouillon, Duchesse de, 137 

Boulogne, 71, 75-6 

Boulogne, M. de, 128 

Bourbonnais, the, 122 

Bourbonne, M. de, 126-8 

Bourg, Antoine du, i 

Bourgogne, Hotel de, 266 

Bouthillier, Richelieu's reply to, 
121 ; and M. de Breval, 129- 
30 ; and Chateauneuf s corre- 
spondence, 153 

Boutteville, 176 

Brequigny, M. de, 268 

Bretagne, Marie d'Auverjour de. 
See Montbazon, Duchesse de. 

Brdval, M. de, envoy of Lorraine, 
129-30 

Breze, Due de, 238 

Brienne, M. de, on Buckingham, 
quoted, 65 ; mission to England, 
76 ; and Buckingham, 83-4 ; on 
Mme. de Chevreuse, quoted, 120, 
123 ; and Chateauneuf, 238, 
297 

Brillet, equerry, 245, 249, 284 

Briolay, 308 

Brion, M. de, Mme. de Chevreuse 
and, 145-8, 151 

Bruges, 221 

Briihl cited, 297 

Briihl, castle of, 294 

Brun, M. le, 330 

Brussels, intrigues in, 161, 220-2, 
235. 257, 259, 264-70 

Buckingham, Duke of, and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 7, 79 ; and Anne 
of Austria, 19, 56-66, 74-5 ; the 
secret journey to Spain, 57 ; 
letter to Mme. de Chevreuse, 
57-8 ; reason for his gomg to 
France, 58-9 ; account of, 60 ; 
entry into Paris, 61 ; the Amiens 
episode, 67-72 ; and Henrietta- 
Maria, T] \ departure of the 



French Ambassadors, 83-4 ; 
offer to return to France, 85 ; 
and the Ornano plot, 95 ; in- 
trigues against Louis XIII, 123- 
5 ; departure for Re, 126 ; the 
charge against, 129-30; death, 
132 

Buffon, 153 

Bullion, 98, 127; letter to Riche- 
lieu, 164-5 

Burgundy, 127 

Bussy-Rabutin quoted, 328, 332-3 

" Cabal, The Ladies," 44 

Cahuzac, 182, 183, 184, 186, 188 

Calais, 218, 219 

Callot, Jacques, 120 

Cambrai, 235, 270 

Campion, Alexandre de, letters of, 

quoted, 95, 222 ; advice to Mme. 

de Chevreuse, 234-5 ; plans of 

Mme. de Chevreuse for, 241 ; 

the plot against Mazarin, 244- 

5 ; news-bearer to Dampierre, 

248-9, 251-2 
Campion, Henri de, the plot 

against Mazarin, 244-6 ; flight 

to Holland, 249 
Candale, Due de, 279, 324 
Cange, M., spy for Mazarin, 251-2 
Canterbury, ']^ 
Cardinal- Infante, the, in Flanders, 

Anne ot Austria's correspondence 

with, 161, 162-3, 171 
Carlisle, Earl ot, Ambassador to 

France, 50-4 ; and the Bucking- 
ham affair, 57-9 ; and the 

Ornano plot, 95-6 
Carlton, 85 

Carmelite Church, the, 313 
Carre, spy, 244 
Carron, M. le, 326 
Castille, Jeannin de, treasurer, 

102, 141 
Catholics, treatment under Charles 

I, 78, 84-5 
Catinat, M. Georges, and Mme. de 

Chevreuse, 177-9, 189, 192, 315 
Chalais, Mme. de, letter to the 

king, 112 



z 2 



339 



INDEX 



Chalais, Marquis de, and Gaston 
d'Orleans, 30, 88-9, 107, 108, 
115 ; his confessions to Richlieu, 
88, 97-9, 103, 104 ; letters to 
Richelieu, 90 ; account of, loi- 
2 ; and Mme. de Chevreuse, 
101-5 ; information against the 
Due de Vendome, 104-5; at 
Blois, 108 ; arrest at Nantes, 
109-11; accusations against 
Mme. de Chevreuse, iio-ii ; 
death, 112-13, 176; letter to 
Louis XIII, 113 

" Chambre de St. Louis," 263 

Champagne, Army of, 126, 127 

Chancellor, the, search of the Val 
de Grace, 169-70 ; examination 
of Anne of Austria, 170-1 ; 
examination of La Porte, 173 ; 
hears of the flight of Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 191. See also Se- 
guier. 

Chantilly, 166, 170 

Charenton, 266, 269 

Charite-sur-Loire, La, Convent of, 
170 

Charles I of England, court of, 7 ; 
and the Due de Chevreuse, 33-4, 
49, 78-80, 219-20 ; marriage 
v/ith Henrietta-Maria, 45, 48-53; 
and Buckingham, 56, 58, 60 : 
the secret journey to Spain, 57 ; 
misunderstandings with Hen- 
rietta-Maria, 74-85 ; persecution 
of the Catholics, 78 ; and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 78-80, 84, 132-5, 
174, 187, 195, 197, 209, 217, 
219, 249 ; letters to the Due de 
Chevreuse, and to Louis XIII, 
82 ; and the " solemn promise," 
^A~5 ; 3,nd the Ornano plot, 
96 ; the marriage contract, 123, 
128, 134-5 ; s'^d Montague, 
126, 128, 158 ; and the plot in 
Lorraine, 127 ; French policy of, 
135 ; and Marie de Medicis, 
203 ; and the revolution in 
England, 255-6, 262 

Charles IV of Lorraine. See 
Lorraine, Charles IV, Due de. 



Charles IX, and the Duchy of 

Chevreuse, 40 
Charleville, 283, 298 
Charny, Charlotte de Castille, 

Comtesse de, 102 
Charny, Comte de, 102 
Charolais, County of, 325 
Charpentier, M., mission to Verdun, 

121 
Charpentier, secretary, 143 
Chartres, 108 
ChSteaubriant-Beaufort, M. de, 

257 

Chateauneuf, castellany of, 321 

Chateauneuf, Marquis de, and 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 55, 134, 
142-52 ; account of, 140-2 ; 
disgrace, 153-4; provisions of 
Louis XIII against his recall, 
226-8 ; return demanded by 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 238 ; letter 
to Chavigny, 239 ; recall of, 
284, 285-7, 290-2 ; and the 
flight of Mazarin, 293-4 '■> Mme. 
de Longueville and, 295-6 ; 
dismissal, 297, 301 

Chatre, La, cited, 237 

Chaulnes, Due de, governor of 
Amiens, 46-7, 67, 235, 330 ; 
Colbert's letter to, 329 

Chaulnes, Duchesse de, 235 

Chavigny, Comte de, governor of 
Vincennes, 247 

Chavigny, M. de, and Louis XIII, 
93 ; letter from Due d'Orleans, 
158 ; Richelieu's letters to, 160, 
231-2, 315 ; and M. de Mar- 
sillac, 192 ; and Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 198, 210, 226 ; letter 
from du Dorat, 207 ; Richelieu's 
conversation with, 212 ; M. de 
Chevreuse and, 219, 221, 331 ; 
letter from Chateauneuf, 239 

Chelles, 334 

Chene Vert, the, 180 

Chennetier, M., 160 

Cherbury, Lord Herbert of, 13 

Cherre de, secretary, 140 

Chevau-legers, the, 126 

Chevreuse, Albert, Marquis de 



340 



INDEX 



(Charles-Honore d' Albert), 321 ; 
Dampierre made over to, 326-7 ; 
personality, 328-g ; marriage, 
329-30 
Chevreuse, Anne-Marie de {aft. 
Abbess of Pont-aux-Dames), 81, 

330, 332 

Chevreuse, Charlotte, and her 
mother, 81, 250-1, 254, 316, 
317? 330 ; S'Od Anne of Austria, 
269 ; returns to Paris with her 
mother, 270 ; and Paul de 
Gondi, 271-2, 277-81 ; at 
Compiegne, 273-4 ; a portrait, 
277-8 ; and the Prince de Conti, 
289-92, 294-8 ; and the Presi- 
dent de Viole, 298 ; and Man- 
cini, 299, 300 ; death, 301-2 

Chevreuse, Due de, marriage with 
the Duchesse de Luynes, 22, 31- 
5 ; and Anne of Austria, 26 ; 
account of, 29-30 ; and Henri 
IV, 30-1 ; interest in Dampierre, 
43 ; effect of his marriage on 
his position, 44 ; favour of the 
king, 45-7 ; represents Charles 
I at his marriage, 48-9, 50-3 ; 
the Hotel de Chevreuse, 54 ; 
and the Earl of Holland, 55 ; 
and the Buckingham affair, 57- 
8, 75 ; mission to England, 76- 
83 ; children of, 81-2, 331 ; 
return to France, 84 ; blamed 
for the non-performance of the 
" solemn promise," 84-5 ; his 
wife's exile, 1 16-17, 122, 129- 
32 ; and M. de Montmorency, 
139 ; and Richelieu, 147, 148 ; 
sent to Couzieres with Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 154 ; despatch from 
M. de Catinat, 189 ; Mme.'s 
appeal from London, 198-9 ; 
Richelieu's appeal to, 204, 216; 
sent to London, 209, 215-17; 
letter to his wife, 217-19, 221 ; 
letter to Charles I, 219 ; Great 
Chamberlain to Louis XIV, 
228 ; and Mme. de Montbazon, 
242 ; entreats Mazarin on behalf 
of his wife, 260 ; letters from 



Mme. de Chevreuse, 260-1 ; 
and the Fronde, 268 ; appeal to 
the Regent, 269 ; and Gondi, 
279 ; death, 313 ; affairs of, 

313-24 
Chevreuse, Duchesse de (Marie de 
Rohan, Duchesse de Luynes, aft. 
Duchesse de Chevreuse), child- 
hood, 4-5; "Discourse on 
Love," 7 ; marriage settlement 
with M. de Luynes, 9-1 1 ; evil 
influences on Anne of Austria, 
13-16 ; children of, 14-15, 81- 
2 ; anger of Louis XIII against, 
19-27 ; marriage with the Due 
de Chevreuse, 31-5 ; letter to 
Louis XIII, 35-6 ; the marriage 
contract, 37-44 ; return to 
court, 46-7 ; and the English 
marriage, 50-3 ; friendship with 
Anne of Austria renewed, 53 ; 
and the Earl of Holland, 55, 68 ; 
and the Buckingham affair, 56- 
75 ; in England, 76-82 ; return 
to France, 84 ; attitude towards 
Richelieu, 86 ; and the Ornano 
plot, 88-100 ; and the Prince de 
Conde, 93 ; consternation at 
arrest of Ornano, loi ; appeal 
to Chalais, 101-5 ; and the arrest 
of the Vendome brothers, 106 ; 
and Gaston d'Orleans, 107 ; the 
accusation of Chalais, iio-ii ; 
the warrant for, 111-13 ; im- 
plores Gaston to break with 
Mile, de Montpensier, 1 14-15 ; 
Richelieu's charge against, 115- 
16; flight to Lorraine, 116-17; 
and Charles IV of Lorraine, 118- 
27, 135 ; and Montague, 123-5, 
127; Montague's charge against, 
129; Bouthillier and, 129-30; 
correspondence with the Queen, 
1 3 1-2 ; and death of Bucking- 
ham, 132 ; appeal to Charles I, 
132-5 ; return to Dampierre, 
133 ; and Chateauneuf, 134, 
142-52 ; hostility towards Marie 
de Medicis, 137 ; understanding 
with the Cardinal, 138-40 ; 



341 



INDEX 



intimacy with Anne of Austria, 
140, 144-5, 147. 154-5 ; grow- 
ing hostility towards the Cardi- 
nal, 151 ; exiled to Touraine, 
153-5 5 ^^ Couzieres, 156 ; at 
Tours, 157-60 ; intrigues with 
Anne of Austria at Couzieres, 
158-66; Anne's letter to, 171- 
2 ; attempt to prevent her leav- 
ing the kingdom, 174-5 ; flight 
into Spain, 177-92 ; in Madrid, 
193-4 ; her negotiations with 
Richelieu, 197-212 ; in London, 
198-219 ; flight to Flanders, 
219-23, 254-8 ; return to France, 
230-7; the plot against Mazarin, 
237-47 ; in exile, 248-61 ; par- 
don after the Fronde, 270 ; re- 
ception at Compi^gne, 273-4 ; 
the understanding with Mazarin, 
274-87 ; intrigues of the Fronde, 
262-302 ; retirement to Dam- 
pierre, 303-8 ; financial diffi- 
culties, 308-27 ; her sons and 
daughters, 327-33; Bussy-Rabu- 
tin's picture, 332-3 ; retirement 
to Gagny, and death, 334-35 

Chevreuse, Duchy of, 38-43,317, 
319-21, 326 

Chevreuse, Henrietta de, a//. 
Abbess of Jouarre, 81, 330 

Chevreuse, Hotel de, 12, 54-5, 
166-7, 271, 278-81, 284, 295, 
297. 316, 317, 320, 323-4 

Chevreuse, village of, 40, 333 

Choiseul, 40, 43 

Choisy, Mme. de, 314 

Cinq-Mars, 76 ; plot of, 232 

Cinq-Mars, Abb^ de, 175, 176 

Clercelier, 316 

Cleves, Catherine de, 37 

Cloves, Hotel de, 245 

Coatquin, Marquis de, and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 254-5, 257, 267 

Coifify, fortress of, 127, 128 

Coigneux, M. le, 204, 214, 217 

Coigneux, Mme. le, 322 

Colbert, M., Mazarin's secretary, 
286-8, 295, 303 ; daughters of, 
329-30 



Colbert, Mile. Henriette Louise, 
329 

Colbert, Mile. Marie, 329-30 

Coligny, Admiral de, i 

Coligny, Comte Maurice de, 242-3 

Cologne, 293 

Combraille, Duchy of, 89 

Comminges, Lieut., 284 

Compiegne, 66, 137, 273, 274, 275 

Concini, 9, 12 

Conde, 235 

Conde, Due de, 243 

Conde family, 90 ; hatred of the 
Duchesse, 241-3 

Conde, Prince de, and the Ornano 
plot, 93 ; at the Council, 247 ; 
and the Spanish plot, 259 ; 
victory at Lens, 263, 265 ; 
attack on Charenton, 266 ; and 
Mile, de Chevreuse, 274 ; attack 
on Mazarin, 281-2 ; arrest of, 
282-4 5 ^^ Vincennes, 289 ; 
release, 292-3 ; visit to Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 294-5 5 ^^^ the 
Conti marriage, 296-8 ; cam- 
paign of the Frondeurs against, 
299-300 ; and Mazarin, 301 

Conde, Princess de, cousin of the 
Due de Chevreuse, 24, 37 ; at 
marriage of Henrietta-Maria, 
52 ; hostiUty towards Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 240, 242 ; and Mme. 
de Montbazon, 244-4 

Conde, Princess de (the Dowager), 
37. 282 

Condour, 182 

Conflans, 189 

Conrart, quoted, 301 

Contarini, Venetian envoy, 20 

Conti, Prince de, 16 ; and the 
Fronde, 268, 269 ; and Mile, de 
Chevreuse, 278, 289-92, 294-8 ; 
arrest, 284 ; release, 292-3 

Conti, Princesse de, 16, 22, 24, 52 ; 
and the affair of the Due de 
Bellegarde, 18 ; , and Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 31, 33, 37, 43 ; and 
Bassompierre, 44 ; and the 
Buckingham affair, 62-63, 72, 
75 ; and the^Ornano plot, 92 



342 



INDEX 



Corbeil, 266 
Corbie, abbey of, 317 
Corneille, 184 
Corsini, Papal Nuncio, 17 
Cottigny, fief of, 40 
Coudren, Pere de, 88 
Couhe, town of, 180 
Council of the Regency, 227-8 
Couzieres, chateau of, 3, 5, 154, 
156, 164, 177, 179, 189, 192, 

207, 215, 248, 249, 250, 308, 
310, 315 

Craft, Mme. de Chevreuse and, 

159-60, 162, 176, 219, 251 
Cressi, ensign, 284 
Cromwell, 255, 277 

Dames-des-Hauts-Bruyeres de 

Port Royal. See Port Royal, 

nuns of. 
Dammartin, 267 
Dampierre, chateau of, 37, 38-43, 

116, 117, 119, 130, 131, 133. 

134, 136, 139, 189, 204, 206, 

208, 210, 237, 248, 249, 270, 
272-3, 302, 303, 306, 307, 313, 
317, 320-7, 331, 335 

Damvilliers, manor of, 39 

Dartmouth, 254 

Datel, 73 

Dauphine, 124, 265 

Declaration drawn up by Louis 
XIII, 227-8 

Denmark House, 79 

Dieppe, 96-7, 209, 293 

Digby, Lord, 194, 198 

Dolce, 190 

Dombes, duchy of, 89 

Dorat, Abbe du, and the Due de 
Lorraine, 154; agent of Richelieu, 
164 ; and Mme. de Chevreuse, 
175-8, 198-202, 204-14 ; de- 
spatch from M. de Catinat, 189 ; 
letter from Mme. de Chevreuse, 
208-9 ; letter to Richelieu, 213- 
14 ; and the affair of M. de 
Chevreuse, 314, 316 

DouUens, 293 

Douzains, 184 

Dover, 255 



" Duke," hmitation of the title by 

Parliament, 39 
Dulorier, 182 
Dumoulins, 81 
Dunault, secretary, 94, 98 
Dunkirk, 219, 220, 221, 255, 256 
Duparquet, M., 325 
Dutch, the, and Louis XIII, 127 

Effiat, Commissioner d', interviews 

Chalais, 109 
Effiat, Comte d', 76, 83 
Elbeuf, Due d', 241 
Elbeuf, Duchesse d', 37, 52, 98 
Empire, the plots against Frpnch, 

124, 127, 153, 161 
Enghien, Due d' 184-5, 251, 291 
England, relations with Gaston 

d'Orleans, 95 ; treaty of peace 

(1629), 133 ; French policy, 249, 

, 251 

Epernon, Due d', 97, 107-8, 238, 

259. 307. 324 
Eschaux, estate of, 178, 182, 189, 

190 
Eschaux, Monseigneur Bertrand 

d', at marriage of Marie de 

Rohan, 11-12, 157 ; Mme. de 

Chevreuse's farewell to, 178-9, 

182, 188-90, 192 
Eschaux, Vicomte d', 178 
Essarts, Mme. des, intervention of, 

1 30-1 
Estissac, M. d', 188 
Estrade, Sieur de 1', 248 
Estrees, d', cited, 236-7 
Estrees, Gabrielle d', 94 
Etampes, Achille d', and Chalais, 
, 104-5, 109 
Etampes, Duchess d', 39 
Etampes, Due d', 39 
Excise, Board of, 263 
" Exempts," meaning of the term, 

109 note 

Fargis, Charles d'Angennes du, 

161 
Fargis, Mme. du, intrigues in 

Brussels, 161-3, 174 
Fervaques, Marechale de, 31 



343 



INDEX 



Feudal property, revenue from, 39 
Flanders, influence of the Duchess 
in, 160 ; Mme.'s flight to, 219- 
23, 254-61 
Flavigny, M. de, 121, 126 
Fleche, La, 254 
Fleury, chateau of, 100, 115 
Folaine, M. de la, 25 
Fontainebleau, 3, 67, 73, 100, 165 
Fontarabia, 194, 204 
Fontenay, Marquis de, 106 
Fontenay-Mareuil, Memoirs guo/ed, 

7, 35, 60, 92, loi, 105, 107 
Fosse, Sieur du, 98 
Fosse, steward, 316 
Fouquet, Abbe, 127, 304. 306-7 
Fourqerolles, Mme. de, 243 
Franciscan monastery, Nantes, 1 1 1 
Frangois I, 28, 38, 39 
Francois II, 28 
Fromont, Seigneur de, 305 
Fronde, intrigues of the, 240-68, 
274, 277 ; the Old Fronde, 275, 
277, 282, 290-1, 297 ; the New 
Fronde, 281, 290-1, 297 ; cam- 
paign of the Frondeurs against 
Conde, 299-300 
Fruges, Mme. de, 233 
Fuensaldagna, Conde di, 267 
Fulton, assassination of Bucking- 
ham, 132 

Gagny, Benedictine Priory, 334 

Gaillon, 42 

Galareta, secretary, 264 

Galigai, Eleonora, 12 

Galland, Mile., 251 

Gallois, le, notary, 321, 324, 326 

Ganseville, 245 

Garaison, Notre-Dame de, 183, 

188 
Gardes Fran^aises, the, 265 
Garter, Order of the, bestowed on 

M. de Chevreuse, 83 
Gaudin, letters to Servien quoted, 

248, 256 
Gaultier, Leonard, picture of the 

Due de Chevreuse, 29-30 
Gazette^ the, reports of Mme. de 

Chevreuse, 236, 274 



Gerbier, 129 

Giron, Spanish Ambassador, 19- 
20 

Gondi, Paul de. See Retz, Cardinal 
de. 

Gondrin, 184 

Gonsalvo, Don Domingo di, 194 

Gonzague, Charles de, 37 

Gordes, M. de, 153 

Goring, Lord, English Ambassador 
in France, 195, 249 

Goulard, M., arrest of La Porte, 
166-7 

Goulas, Nicolas, Memoirs quoted, 
118, 129, 225, 228, 238, 242, 
270, 275 

Grancey, Comte de, 268 

Gras, Le, 171 

Gratien, M., 322 

Gravelines, siege of, 265 

Greenwich, 195, 198 

Grosbois, park of, 43 

Guadaloupe, 325 

Guemene, Prince de, 4, 5, 117, 
156 ; lawsuits, 308-9, 310-I1 

Guemene, Princesse de, 305 

Guise, Cardinal de, 28 

Guise, Due de, 15, 26, 37, 39, 241 

Guise, Duchesse de, 37, 52 

Guise, Duke Frangois de, 28 

Guise, Henri de, "le Balafre," 
murdered at Blois, 16, 28-9, 39 

Guise, Hotel de, 244 

Guise, in the Aisne, 267 

Guise Princes, the, 119; position 
at the French Court, 32-3 ; in- 
fluence of, 44 ; the plot against 
Mazarin, 244 ; intervention on 
behalf of Montresor, 257 

Guitant, M. de, 166, 247, 284 

Guitry, M., 94 

Guyenne, 124, 222, 290 ; Hugue- 
nots of, 43-5 

Haqueville, M. de, 280 
Hallier, M. du, 100, 130 
Hallot, M., 214 

Hamel, M. du, request of, 304-5 
Hamelin, Jean, 323 
Hampton Court, 77, 81 



344 



INDEX 



Harcourt, Comte d', 37, 246 

Haro, Don Luis de, 238 

Hautefort, Mile, de, 173, 177, 189 

Havre, the, 96-7, 289, 293 

Henri II, 2, 29, 39, 119 

Henri III, 2, 264 

Henri IV, 3, 16, 18, 29, 30, 34,39, 

49, 94. 97. 130 
Henrietta of England, 306 
Henrietta-Maria, and Marie de 
Rohan, 7 ; marriage, 44, 48-53 ; 
and Buckingham, 59 ; departure 
from France, 65-6, 68-71 ; mis- 
understandings with Charles I, 
74-85 ; reception in England, 
76-7 ; the marriage contract, 
123, 134-5 ; letters to Chateau- 
neuf, 153 ; and Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, 197, 203, 209 ; in Paris, 

253. 259 

Hericourt, 245 

Herwart, 295 

Hilaire, servant, 178, 179, 180, 
181, 182, 184, 188 

Hocquincourt, Marquis de, 235, 
274 

Holland, Earl of. Ambassador from 
Charles I, 50-3 ; account of, 
54 ; and Mme. de Chevreuse, 
55, 68, 76, 79-80, 148 ; and the 
Buckingham affair, 57, 59, 68, 
71, 75 ; letter to Richelieu, 84 ; 
despatched to Paris, 85 

Houel, M., 325 

Hugo, Vie de Charles IV, 124-5 

Huguenots, the, campaign against, 
43-5 ; Richelieu and, 74 ; Buck- 
ingham and, 75 ; and the Ornano 
plot, 93 ; and Gaston d' Orleans, 
96 ; and Mme. de Rohan, 115 ; 
Mme. de Chevreuse and the, 
122-3, 127, 259, 294; fall of 
La Rochelle, 132 

Humbert, Henri, 120 

lie de France, government of, 

311 
" Importants," the, 240, 244 
Ingrandes, 108 
Issy, 331 



Jacobins, Church of the, Paris, 334 
James I, relations with France, 

49, 50j 54 ; and Buckingham, 

56, 60 
Jansenists, the, 304, 327, 328, 333 
Jars, Chevalier de, 143, 153 
Jars, M. de, 73 

Jeannin of the treasury. 5^^Castille. 
Jeannin, President, 26, 27, 34, 112 
Jean-Paul, M. See Malbati. 
Joly, Guy, quoted, 243, 284, 290, 

297, 299, 301, 302 
Jouarre, Abbess of, 160, 330, 331 
Jouarre, Abbey of, 81, 130, 131, 

332 
Joyeuse, M. de, 15, 89 
Julien, Abbe de St., 251 
Julien, M., 160 

Karpen, 325 

King's Hunt, mastership of the, 
311 

La Fere, siege of, 30 

La Rochelle, Protestants of, 96, 
259 ; and Gaston, 107 ; siege of, 
122, 124, 132, 133, 294 

Lafifemas, Richelieu's agent, 173 

Laigue, M. de, and Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, 264-7, 275-6, 302, 
305-6, 308, 332-3 ; despatches 
from Brussels, 267-8 ; return 
of, 270-1 ; account of, 275-6 ; 
Mile, de Chevreuse and, 280, 
281 ; reward for, 283, 285 ; and 
the Conti marriage, 290 ; and 
the Mazarin tapestries, 295 ; and 
the Jansenists, 333-4 

Laigue, Marguerite de, 276 

Lamont, guard, 112 

Lamothe-Houdancourt, M. de. 
Bishop of Mende, letters to 
Richelieu, 75-6, 78-81, 96 

Lancelot, 328 

Lange, 212 

Languedoc, 125 

Lannoy, Mme. de, 48, 72 

Laulne, De, secretary, 275 

Laval, 254 

Le Cabinet satyrique, 17 



345 



INDEX 



Le Cid, 158, 184 
League, the, 29, 264 
Lenet quoted, 231, 259, 278 
Lenoncourt, Madeleine de. See 

Montbazon, Duchesse de. 
Lenoncourt, Marquis of, 127 
Lens, battle of, 263-5 
Leopold, Archduke, 258 ; attack 

on Conde, 264 ; appeal of Mme. 

de Chevreuse, 266-8 
Lescot, work on the Louvre, 55 
Lesigny-en-Brie, 12, 38, 268 
Lhulier, M. le, 316 
Liancourt, M., le, 35, 191 
Lie, De, 245 
Liege, 255-58 
Lievre, M. le, 316 
Ligne, Prince de, 285 
Lillebonne, 293 
Lionne, secretary, 288 ; Mazarin's 

correspondence with, 266, 298-9 
" Logique of Port-Royal," 328 
Lommerein, 325 
London, Mme. de Chevreuse in, 

198-219 
Longuetille, 22 
Longueville, Due de, governor of 

Normandy, 94, 96, 259, 284, 

292-3 
Longueville, Duchesse de, and 

Mme. de Chevreuse, 37, 240, 

282 ; and M. de Coligny, 242- 

43 ; claims for, 281 ; and the 

Conti marriage, 292, 295-7 
Lorraine, Cardinal de, 28, 39, 40, 

41 . 
Lorraine, Charles de. See Guise, 

Due de. 

Lorraine, Claude de. Prince de 
Joinville. See Chevreuse, Due de. 

Lorraine, princes of, position at 
the French court, 32 

Lorraine, Charles IV, Duke of, 
and Mme.de Chevreuse, 117-23, 
134-5, 140, 174-6. . 200-2, 
205-12, 300, 304 ; claims ad- 
vanced by, 122-4, 130 ; ^iid 
Buckingham plot, 124-9 : de- 
mands release of Montague, 127- 
8; treaty with France, 139; 



plots against France, 152-4, 
161 ; Anne's dealings with, 171- 
2; Mme. de Chevreuse's corre- 
spondence with, 210, 258 
Louis XIII, birth, 3 ; and Marie 
de Rohan, 6, 9-12 ; favours 
bestowed on M. de Luynes, 13- 
15 ; relations with the Queen, 
15-19 ; and Mme. de Luynes, 
19-21 ; anger against the Duchess, 
22-7, 31-2, 35-6 ; and her 
second marriage, 38-9 ; the 
English marriage, 44-53 ; recep- 
tion of Mme. de Chevreuse, 45- 
7 ; and the Duchess de Mont- 
morency, 47 ; and the Bucking- 
ham affair, 61, 65, 75, 78, 80 ; 
the Amiens episode, 67-74 ; 
attitude towards Mme. de Che- 
vreuse, 78, 116 ; and Charles I, 
78 ; and the Order of the Garter, 
83 ; the articles of the marriage 
contract, 84-5 ; appreciation of 
Richelieu, 87-8, and the Mont- 
pensier marriage, 90, 114; and 
the Ornanoplot, 91-9 ; Gaston's 
request for admission to the 
Council, 100 ; arrest of Ornano, 
loo-i; the Chalais affair, loi, 
105, 111-13; arrest of the Ven- 
dome brothers, 106 ; at Blois, 
108 ; exile of Mme. de Che- 
vreuse, 1 16-17, 121, 122, 154- 
5 ; and Charles IV of Lorraine, 
1 2 1-3 ; starts for the Isle de Re, 
126 ; and Montague, 127-30 ; 
pardons Mme. de Chevreuse, 
130-7; impressions of the 
pardon at Court, 132-5 ; entry 
into La Rochelle, 132 ; and 
Richelieu, 136-7; disgrace of 
Chateauneuf, 152-4 ; at Cou- 
zieres in 16 19, 156 ; hostility of 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 158-60 ; 
the affair of the Val-de-Grace, 
163-72 ; forbids Anne to see 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 174 ; grant 
of money to Mme. de Chevreuse, 
175-6 ; hears of Mme. de Chev- 
reuse's flight, 189, 191, 194 ; 



346 



INDEX 



attitude towards Mme. de Chev- 
reuse in England, 196-7, 199, 
200 ; the " abolition " granted to 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 201-2, 212- 
13 ; Mme. de Chevreuse allowed 
to return to Dampierre, 208 ; 
passports for Mme. de Chevreuse, 
217; refuses to reply to Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 220 ; revolt of 
Soissons, 222 ; influence of 
Richelieu, 224-5 5 animosity 
against Mme. de Chevreuse, 
224-230 ; the declaration, 227- 
28; death, 228, 231 ; and the 
Due de Luynes, 324 ; and the 
colonization of the Antilles, 325 

Louis XIV, 2 ; provisions of the 
regency, 227-8 ; Mazarin his 
godfather, 229 ; driven out of 
Paris, 263, 264 ; Mme. de Chev- 
reuse pays her duty to, 274; 
attempted flight, 292 ; forbids 
the Conti marriage, 298 ; ma- 
jority, 299-301, 304 ; and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 301, 307, 324-5, 
327 ; and Fouquet, 306-7 ; and 
the Colbert marriage, 329 

Louvi^re, Gaston de la, mission to 
Sedan, 107 

Louviere, M. de la, the warrant 
for, 111-12 

Louvre, the, 11, 22, 57, 61, 166, 
225, 237, 246, 247, 261 ; the Salle 
Lacaze, 24 ; chamber of the Due 
de Chevreuse, 34 ; Lescot's work 
ii^> 55 ; Jardin de 1' Infante, 63 ; 
the Queen's apartments, 63 ; 
Galerie d'Apollon, 63-4; Chapel 
of the, 102-3 

Lussan, M. de, of Amboise, 252 

Luxembourg, palace of the, 297 

Luynes, Antoinette de. See Vernet, 
Mme. du. 

Luynes, Due de, marriage to Marie 
de Rohan, 9-1 1, 157, 324 ; and 
Anne of Austria, 13 ; birth of 
his son, 15 ; favours from the 
king, 19 ; death, 21-2 ; and 
the Due de Cheuvreuse, 31 ; 
moneys belonging to, 46-7 



Luynes, Due de, son of Mme. de 
Chevreuse, claim for his mother's 
return, 268-9; income of, 321; 
afiairs of, 323, 326 ; account of, 
327-8 ; marriage of his son, 
330 

Luynes, Hotel de, 15 

Luynes, Mile, de, 331, 332 

Luynes, Mme. de, 327 

Madeleine, the, Paris, 40 

Mademoiselle, the Great, 274, 278, 
308 

Madrid, 193-4 

Maignelay, Marquise de, 131 

Maille, Comte de, 244 

Maincourt, manor of, 39 

Maine, Due du, 10, 34 

Maine, Mile, du, 34 

Maison Rouge, 334 

Maisons, 246 

Malbati (M. Jean-Paul), and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 182-6, 190, 192-3 

Malherbe, 18 

Malta, Knights of, 325 

Mancini, nephew of Mazarin, 299, 
300 

Mandat, 251 

Mansard, architect, 41, i6g 

Mare aux Bois, 40 

Marehais, chateau of, 30 

Marcheville, 133 

Mareoussis, 289 

Marfee, battle of, 222 

Marie de Medieis, the regency, 
3. 9, 33. 49, 135-6 ; and the 
Duehesse de Luynes, 15 ; recon- 
ciled to the king, 23; and Claude 
de Lorraine, 34 ; the marriage 
of Henrietta- Maria, 51, 52, 53, 
59 ; and Buckingham, 61, 65- 
6, 67, 70-3, 75 ; correspond- 
ence with Mme. de Chevreuse, 
80 ; and the Montpensier mar- 
riage, 89 ; and the Ornano plot, 
93, 94 ; and M. de Breval, 129 ; 
letter from Richelieu, 130-1; 
Mme. de Chevreuse and, 131, 
135; hostility to the Cardinal, 
136-7, 141 ; flight to Flanders, 



347 



INDEX 



137, 162-3 ; at Couzi^res in 
1619, 156; visit to England, 203 

Marie, Princess, 135, 136 

Marillac, Marshal Louis de. Letters 
to Richelieu, quoted, 16, 31, 36, 
38, 44; command in Champagne, 
126, 141 

Marillac, M. de, Keeper of the 
Seals, disgrace, 141 

Marsillac, M. de (La Roche- 
foucauld), friendship for Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 160, 232-3, 235- 
6, 249-50 ; warning to Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 176-7; loan of 
the coach and saddle horses, 
180-4, 188, 190-2 ; and the 
Havre, 238 

quoted, on Mme de Chevreuse, 

9, 85, 90, 240 ; on the Bucking- 
ham affair, 56,57, 62, 69; on 
Richelieu, 85 ; on the Ornano 
plot, 99 ; on Chalais, 102-3 ; on 
the regency, 226 ; on return of 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 235-6 ; 
on Gondi's friendship, 278 ; on 
the Conti marriage, 296 

Marston Moor, 255 

Marthon, 182 

Martinique, 325 

Mary Stuart, 28 

Massetiere, Hotel de la, 157, 160, 
178 

Maugiron, Mile, de, 19 

Maulevrier, M. de, 243 

Mauny, Marquis de, 52, 94 

Maurepas, manor of, 39 

Mazarin, Cardinal, reports of Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 9, 222, 226, 241 ; 
and Rosetti, 215 ; advice to 
Anne, 228; Louis XIH's con- 
fidence in, 229 ; policy, 230-33 ; 
the plot against, 233-8, 244- 
7; policy towards the Duchesse, 
234-6, 239, 250, 257-8, 261- 
2 ; and the demands of the 
Duchesse, 237-9 ; attack by 
the " Importants," 244; reply to 
the Marquis de Coatquin, 255 ; 
England's offer to hand over the 
Duchesse, 256-7 ; flight from 



Paris, 263, 266 ; the Reuil con- 
ferences, 268 ; and the return 
of Mme. de Chevreuse, 269-70, 
272-5 ; the understanding with 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 272-87 ; 
and Gondi, 276, 279, 280, 281, 
288 ; and Mme. de Montbazon, 
280 ; and the H6telde Chevreuse, 
280-1 ; the arrest of Conde, 
281-4 ; unpopularity, 288-9 ; 
Mme. de Chevreuse designs his 
fall, 290-2 ; flight, 292-4 ; 
letters from Cologne, 294 ; his 
tapestries hung in the Hotel de 
Chevreuse, 295 ; letter to Lionne, 
296; advice to Anne, 297-8; 
recall, 299-300, 303 ; negotia- 
tions with Conde, 301 ; letter 
from the Duchesse in her retire- 
ment, 303-4 ; replies to the 
Duchesse's requests, 304-5 ; on 
Laigue, quoted^ 332 

Mazarin, Due de, 330 

Mazarinades, 8, 263, 272 

Mazelle, 315 

Mazuel, 190 

Meilleraye, M. de la, 94, 192 

Menardeau, M., 316, 317, 322 

Mende, Bishop of. See Lamothe- 
Houdancourt, M. de. 

Mercoeur, Duchesse de, 37 

Mercure, reports of Buckingham's 
visit, 61, 64 

Mercy, Abbe Ernest de, 258, 260, 
263, 264 

Mere, Poltrot de, 28 

Mdridon, M. de, 322 

Metezeau, Clement, 12, 55 

Metz, 107, 121, 126, 191 

Meudon, 40, 266 

Meunier, M. Leger, 323 

Mirabel, Marquis de, Anne of 
Austria's letters to, 135, 160-2, 
166, 168, 1 71-3 

Moissac, 20-1 

Mole, First President, and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 270-3, 275 

Mole, Mathieu, Memoirs, 268 

MoHere, M. de, 251 

Monceau, 308 



348 



INDEX 



Monceaux, 131 

Monglat, Memoirs quoted, 8, 171, 

269, 282, 288, 289, 313 
Monluc, Jeanne de, loi 
Monluc, Marshal de, 112 
Mons, 235 

Monsigot, M., 204, 214, 217 
Mont Saint- Vincent, Barony of, 

325 

Montague, Lord, on Marie de 
Rohan, quoted, 7 ; and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 123-5, 127, 160 ; 
return to London, 126 ; arrest, 
126-8; letter to Louis XIII, 
128-9 ; charge against Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 129; release, 130; 
letters to Chateauneuf, 153 ; at 
Tours, 158 ; reception of the 
Duchesse in England, 195 ; 
advice to the Duchesse, 198- 
200 ; departs for Flanders, 219 ; 
and Mazarin, 234 ; at Roye, 235 

Montaigne, 7 

Montastruc, 185 

Montauban, 20, 125 

Montbazon, chateau de, 3 

Montbazon, Due de, account of, 
1-4 ; marriage of his daughter, 
lo-ii; and the queen, 17; 
mission to Louis, 26 ; and the 
marriage of Mme. de Chevreuse, 
37 ; house of, 252 ; and the 
Fronde, 277 ; death, 308 ; law- 
suits following, 308-12 ; will of, 

311 

Montbazon, Duchesse de, account 
of, 2-4, 242 ; the incident at her 
house, 242-3 ; the collation at 
the Tuileries, 243-4 ; exiled, 
244 ; and Beaufort, 275 ; and 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 280 ; 
rewards for, 291 ; accusation 
against, 310-11; death, 312-13 

Montbazon, Duchy of, 310 

Montbazon, Hotel de, 1-2, 309- 
10 

Montbeliard, County of, 281 

Montdidier, 66 

Montguyon, Comte de, 10 

Montmorency, Constable de, 4, 14 



Montmorency, Due de, and the 
Queen, 18-9 ; takes up his 
mother's quarrel, 47 ; and the 
Ornano plot, 93 ; and M. de 
Chevreuse, 139 ; death, 141, 
143, 176, 240, 296 

Montmorency, Duchesse de, and 
Marie de Rohan, 14, 27, 47, 
48 

Montmort, M. de, 316, 321-2 

Montpensier, Duchy of, 89 

Montpensier, Mile, de, 52, 89-91, 
94, 106. 108, 114, 135, 307 

Montresor, Comte de. Memoirs, 
251-3, 254, 265 ; arrest, 257 

Montreuil, M. de, reports, 214, 
217, 222 

Montreux, 71 

Montrouillon, M. de, 321 

Morant, M., 316 

Moret, Comtesse de, 30 

Moron, Jean, 323 

Morosini, M., 288 

Mortale, 165 

Motteville, Mme. de. Memoirs 
qtioted, 8-9, 14, 16-19, 23, 26, 
56-8, 64-5, 69, 75, 88, 103, 
138, 141, 142, 194, 228, 231, 
242, 269, 273, 274, 277, 282, 
283, 290, 293, 306 

Moulins, 137 

Mousseaux, 40 

Miinster, Congress of, 215, 259 

Mussidan, 182 

Namur, 260-1 

Nancy, Mme. de Chevreuse at, 

120-1, 123, 124, 160 
Nani, Venetian Ambassador, 252, 

260 
Nantes, castle of, 108, 109, 115 ; 

Franciscan monastery, m ; 

execution of Chalais at, 1 12-13 ; 

government of, 311 
Naseby, 255 

Negrepelisse, attack on, 45 
Nemours, Due de, 37 
Nemours, Duchesse de, cited, 282, 

293. 294 
Nemours, Hotel de, 252 



349 



INDEX 



Nevers, Due de, and the Ornano 

plot, 93, 94. 135. 289 
Newbury, 255 
Newport, Lord, 219 
Nicole, daughter of Henri II, 119- 

20 
Nogent, M. de, 116 
Noirmoutier, Due de, 265, 267, 

270, 280, 283, 290, 298, 304, 

308 
Normandy, 124, 127 
Notre-Dame de Garaison, 183, 188 
Notre-Dame de Paris, 51-3 
Noyers, Des, Secretary of State, 

168 

Obazine, Abbe d', 97 

Ogier, notary, 321, 323 

Oinvilliers, farm of, 321 

Olivares, Duque, eorrespondenee 
with Anne of Austria, 162 ; 
and Mme. de Chevreuse, 203, 
221-2 

Orange, Prinee of, 248, 249, 257 

Orleans, Due de, 157-8 ; and 
Mazarin, 246, 247 ; and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 275, 285, 288, 
291, 293 ; prevents the queen's 
flight, 292 ; and the Frondeurs, 
297 

Orleans, Gaston d'. Due d'Anjou, 
on the ]3uc de Chevreuse, 30 ; 
and the English marriage, 52, 
66, 71 ; relations with Anne of 
Austria, 85 ; personality, 88-9 ; 
marriage with Mile, de Mont- 
pensier, 89-90 ; influence of 
d'Ornano, 91, 92 ; refuses to 
marry, 92-3 ; requests admission 
to the Council, 92, 99-100 ; 
accusations against Louis XIII, 
95-6, 224 ; confession to the 
king, 12 July 1626, 96 ; and 
the Ornano plot, 94-6, 98-100, 
113 ; the arrest of Ornano, loi ; 
and the Chalais afifair, loi, 103, 
105, 106, 107; and the arrest 
of the Vendome brothers, 106 ; 
proposed flight, 107-8, 125 ; 
Louis insists on the marriage, 

35< 



114'; and the king's pardon, 
133 ; and the Princess Marie, 

135. 136 ; flight to Lorraine, 

136, 140, 152-4 ; and the Due 
de Montmorency, 143 ; revolt, 
151 ; and Mme. de Montbazon, 
242 ; Mme. de Chevreuse's pro- 
posals to, 283, 286 ; demands 
release of the princes, 292 

Orleans, meeting at, 165 
Ormesson, Lefevre d', 329, 330 
Ornano, Alfonso d', 91 
Ornano, Marshal d', plot of, 90- 

10 1 ; at Vincennes, 109 ; death, 

113-114 
Ozonandre^ 2 

Palais Royal, the, 261, 283, 292, 
297 

Palatine, Princess, and the Conti 
marriage, 289-92; and Conde, 
294 

Paris, return of Mme. de Chevreuse 
to, 236, 270, 272, 277 ; flight of 
the court from, 263, 264 ; barri- 
caded, 262, 292 

Paris, Archbishop of, 263, 276, 
330. 331 ; search of the Val de 
Grace, 169-70 

Paris, Parliament of, attitude to- 
wards Mazarin, 251 ; plays the 
part of States-General, 262-4 

Parliamentarians, the, and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 255-7 

Parliamentary Fronde, the, 282 

Passe-volants, des, 84, and note 

Patin, Guy, cited, 261, 329 

Paulet, Angelique, 31, 64 

Peace, Treaty of, between England 
and France, 133 

Pembrock, ']^ 

Pembroke, Earl of, Mme. de 
Chevreuse's letter to, 256 

Pennacors, letter to the Cardinal, 
300 

Peronne, 235, 293 

Phalsbourg, Prrncesse de, 258 

Philip IV, of Spain, and Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 194, 221 

Piecolomini, General, 258 



INDEX 



Piedmont, 123 

Pinet, M., 323 

Piquecos, chateau of, 20, 21 

Plainville, 158 

Poitiers, 180, 300 

Poitou, 127, 204 

Pompignan, 30 

Pomponne, Simond Arnauld de, 
305. 323 

Pons, Mile, de, 278 

Pont-aux-Dames, 81 

Pontavert, 267 

Pont-de-1'Arche, 281 

Porte, La, Memoirs, quoted, 54, 60, 
68,69,73, 123, 128, 154, 160-1, 
171 ; dismissal, 73 ; sent to 
Lorraine by Anne, 135 ; at 
Tours, 160 ; defence of Anne, 
164 ; and the intrigues, 165, 
166 ; arrest, 166-7 '■> denials of 
M^re St. Etienne, 170 ; exami- 
nation, 167-9, 171, 172, 173, 
315-16 ; exile, 173 

Porte Saint-Antoine, 301 

Port-Royal-des-Champs, nuns of, 
304, 305, 322, 323, 327, 328, 

333. 334 

Portsmouth, 132, 194 

Poterie, M. le Roy de la, 167 

Potet, servant, 182, 183, 184, 185, 
187, 188, 191 

Praslin, 45 

Preaux, M. de, 57 

Prince, The, journey of Henrietta- 
Maria in, 75-6 

Prou, surveyor, 316 

Provenge, affairs in, 124, 284-5, 
290 

Puisieux, M. de, 46 

Putange, M. de, equerry to the 
queen, 26, 68, 70, 73 

Puylaurens, and Gaston, 96 ; the 
warrant for, II i-i 2 

Rambouillet, Hotel de, 64 

Ranee, M. de, 312 ; Richelieu's 

correspondence with, 135, 136 
Ravaillac, 3 

Re, lie de, 75, 126, 129 
Reaux, Tallemant des, quoted, 5, 



13, 16, 21, 30, 43, 54, 69, 157, 

196,313. 327 

Remiremont, Abbey of, 331-2 

Remond, notary, 322 

Renard, 243 

Renault, man-servant, 178, 179, 
180, 182, 184, 188, 216 

Rennes, Parliament of, 252 

Rethelois, Duchy of, 299 

Retz, Cardinal de (Paul de Gondi), 
Memoirs quoted, 8-9, 63-4, 69, 
230, 242, 244, 246-7, 263, 276, 
278-80, i(^}f-^ ; appeal to Spain, 
265 ; the despatches from 
Laigue, 267-8 ; and Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 271, 275, 283, 302 ; 
and Mile, de Chevreuse, 271-2, 
277-81, 296 ; account, 276-8 ; 
claims of, 283, 288 ; interview 
with Anne, 283-4 \ and the 
arrest of Conde, 284 ; Mazarin's 
distrust of, 285-7 5 and the 
Conti marriage, 290, 291, 292 ; 
the campaign against Conde, 
299 ; created Cardinal, 300-1 ; 
arrest, 303, 305-6 

Rhodes, Marquis de, 279 

Rhodes, Marquise de, 6, 279-80, 
289-9 

Richelieu, Cardinal de, and Mme. 
de Luynes, 6-8, 15-16, 31, 36, 
38 ; and Buckingham, 58-61, 64, 
74, 75, 80 ; correspondence with 
the Bishop of Mende, 78, 81 ; 
language applied to Mme. de 
Chevreuse, 81 ; and the articles 
of the marriage contract, 84-5 ; 
personality, 86-7 ; letters from 
Chalais, 90 ; and the Ornano 
plot, 92-9 ; the council at Fon- 
tainebleau, 100 ; and Chalais, 
103-11 ; charges against Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 115, 120, 125, 
134-6 ; reply to BouthiUier, 121 ; 
precautions in Lorraine, 121, 
126, 127 ; and M. de Breval, 
130 ; letter to Marie de Medicis, 
130-1 ; attitude of Mme. de 
Chevreuse towards, 131, 133 ; 
siege of La Rochelle, 132 ; on 



351 



INDEX 



the Italian Front er, 135 ; 
hostility of Marie de Medicis, 
136-7, 141 ; reconciliation with 
the queen and Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, 138-40 ; and the corre- 
spondence between Chateauneuf 
and Mme. de Chevreuse, 143-57 ; 
Mme. de Chevreuse exiled to 
Lorraine, 154-5 ! uneasiness 
about the Duchess at Tours, 
158 ; letters to Chavigny, 160 ; 
hostility of Mme. de Chevreuse, 
160 ; and the affairs of the Val 
de Grace, 164-71 ; hostility of 
Anne, 164 ; examination of La 
Porte, 167-9 ; Anne's confession 
to, 171-2 ; prevents Mme. de 
Chevreuse leaving the kingdom, 
I74~5 ; her confession, 176 ; 
annoyance at Mme. de Chev- 
reuse's flight, 189, 191 ; letter 
from Mme. de Chevreuse in 
Spain, 193 ; Mme. de Chev- 
reuse's negotiations with, 197- 
212 ; and M. de Chevreuse, 204, 
216, 219 ; Mme. de Chevreuse's 
letters from London, 207-9 ; 
money sent to Mme. de Chev- 
reuse, 209 ; Mme. de Chevreuse's 
appeal to, unanswered, 220-1 ; 
death, 223 ; influence over Louis 
XIII, 224-5 ; policy, 230, 238-9, 
244-45, 262 ; and the monetary 
affairs of the Due de Chevreuse, 
314-15 ; and the children of 
Mme. de Chevreuse, 330-2 
Richelieu, Due de, 278 
Richmond Palace, 'j'], 78, 83 
Riquetti, of the King's Bodyguard, 
message to Mme. de Chevreuse, 

253-4 
Riviere, M. de la, and La Porte, 

173 
Rochechouart, M. Frangois de, 

323 
Rochefort-en-Yveline, castle of, 

244, 309, 310 
Rochefoucauld, Cardinal de la, 

marriage of Henrietta -Maria, 

53 



Rochefoucauld, La. See Mar- 
sillac, M. de. 

Rochefoucauld, M. de la, 160 ; 
houses of, 180-2, 252 ; reports 
to Richelieu, 191 

Rochefoucauld, Mme. de la, 181, 
191 

Rochevalon, 165 

Roger, Louise, 3 

Rohan, Anne de, 312-3, 327-8 

Rohan, Henri de, 259 

Rohan, M. de., 117, 124, 125 

Rohan, Mme. de, and the Hugue- 
nots, 93, 115 

Rohan, Tancred de, 259 

Rohan-Guemene, Marie de, 4 

Rossetti, the Nuncio, and Mme. 
de Chevreuse, 23-4, 214-15 ; 
the Ornano plot, 96 

Rouen, 209 

Roundheads, the, 255 

Roussel, arrest, 263 

Royan, 45 

Roye, 235, 236 

Rucellai, letters to Due de Chev- 
reuse, 31 ; letter to Claude de 
Lorraine, 33 

Rueil, 191, 208 ; conferences 
at, 267, 268 ; Peace of, 270, 
274 

Ruffec, 180, 181, 190 

Sable, Marquise de, and the Due 

de Montmorency, 18 
Saclay, fief of, 40 
Saint-Aignan, Due de, 329 
Saint-Antoine, abbey of, 330-1 
Saint-Cloud, 266, 269 
Saint-Denis, abbey of, 266, 317 
Sainte-Beuve, quoted, 328 
SaintCjChapelle, Paris, 175 
Saint-Emilion, 45 
Saintes, 181, 190, 191 
Saint-Etienne, Mfere (Louise de 

Milly), 164, 169-70 
Saint-Evremond, cited^ 259, 333 
Saint-Fargeau, duchy of, 89 
Saint-Fiacre, priory of, 334 
Saint Germain-en-Laye, 153, 215, 

224, 225, 233 



352 



INDEX 



Saint-Ibal, M. de, and Mme. de 

Chevreuse, 258-9, 263, 264 
Saint Kitts, 325 
Saint Luc, 30 
Saint Magloire, 280 
Saint-Maixert, 190 
Saint-Malo, 254, 256, 257 
Saint-Maur, 299 
Saint-Merri, 304 
Saintonge, 129, 300 
Saint Remy de Reims, abbey of, 

317 
Saint-Simon, quoted^ 8, 328, 333 
Saint-Vincent de Connezac, 182 
Sant Estaban, 193 
Saragossa, Viceroy of, 187, 193 
Sarmiento, Don Antonio, and 

Mme. de Chevreuse, 222, 241 
Saumur, 173 
Sauval, cited^ i 
Savoy, Duke of, plots against 

France, 96, 98, 123, 125, 128, 

161 
Savoy, Prince Thomas of, 214 
Schomberg, 30, 81, 100 
Scots, the, and Charles, 255 
Sedan, 107, 300 
Seguier, M., 168, 285, 320, 324 
Seguiran, P^re, 23, 73 
Senlis, 43 

Servien, 248, 256, 296 
Sierck, 210 

Sipierre, Comtesse de, 76 
Soissons, Comte de, and Mile, de 

Montpentsier, 90 ; and the Or- 

nano plot, 93, 94 ; and Mme. 

de Chevreuse, 107, 125 ; revolt, 

222 
Soissons, Comtesse de, 52, 125 
Sommerive, 30 
Soubise, and Mme. de Chevreuse, 

214, 222 
Souvigny, cited, 4 
Souvre, Commandeur de, 7 
Spa, conference at, 264 
Spain, Mme. de Chevreuse and, 

96, 202-3, 222, 239, 248, 252, 

257, 258, 259, 263-4, 294 ; 

policy towards France, 123, 

161-3, 172, 223, 249, 266-8; 



Anne and, 15 1-2, 226 ; Maza 

rin's policy towards, 260 
Stains, 66 
Stenay, 295 
Superintendent of the Queen's 

Household, office suppressed, 

48 
Switzerland, 125 

Tabouret, privilege of the 11, 200 

Talleyrand, Daniel de, loi 

Tan, mills of, 40 

Tarbes, 185, 186 

Tellier, Le, Secretary of State, 270, 

273, 284-8, 305 
Termes, 30 
Terne, La, 182, 192 
Themines, Mme. de, 81 
Thibaudi^re, M. de la, 160, 166, 

168-9, 171 
Thou, M. de, 141 
Thuillin, bodyservant, 181-2, 183, 

184 
Tillac, M. du, 251 
Tilli^res, Comte Leveneur de, 58- 

9, 62, 65, 74, 76, 77 
Tilli^res, Comtesse de, 76 
Titus, anonymous informant, 214 
Tonniens, 182 
Toul, garrison, 121 
Toulouse, 143 

Touraine, Mme. de Chevreuse ex- 
iled to, 154-5 ; plotting in, 252-4 
Tours, Archbishop of See Es- 

chaux, Monseigneur Bertrand d'. 
Tours, Mme. de Chevreuse in, 108, 

157-60, 163-78, 189-92, 249, 

251. 253 
Trappe, La, 312 
Tremoille, la, family of, 265 
Tresmes, M, de, 109 
Tuilerie, La, lands of, 40 
Tuileries, the, 55, 243 
" Two Angels (The)," 246 

Uzes, Due de, 52 

Vadencourt, 267 

Val de Grace, Convent of, Paris, 
affair of the, 163, 169-71, 259 



353 



INDEX 



Valette, M. de la, 107-8, 204, 214, 
217, 219, 222 

Valette, Mme. de La (Mile, de 
Verneuil), 16, 24 ; the king's 
letter to, 25-6 ; the Ornano plot, 
92 

Vallier, Jean, quoted, I'j'z 

Valli^re, Mile, de la, 328 

Vaumorin, M. de, 251 

Vaumurier, 327, 328 

Veleda, Marquis de, Spanish Am- 
bassador in London, 203, 214, 
219, 257 

Vendome, Alexandre de, 94, 98-9 

Vendome, Alexandre and Caesar 
de, plot against Richelieu, 100, 
104 ; arrest, 106 ; Mme. de 
Chevreuse's negotiations with, 
115, 249; indemnity for, 283 

Vendome, Cssar Due de, 233, 237, 
247, 251 ; and the Ornano plot, 

94-5. 97, 99 
Vendome, Duchesse de, 37 
Vendome, Mile, de, and Due de 

Chevreuse, 10, 34 
Venetian Ambassador, quoted, 

22-3 
Venice, 125, 127 
Verdun, 121, 127 
Verger, Chiteau du, in Poitou, 117 
Vernet, Barthelemy du, 16 



Vernet, Mme. du, 15, 16, 23 
Verneuil, M. de, mission to Louis, 

26 
Verneuil, Marquise de, 30, 31 
Verneuil, Mile. de. See Valette, 

Mme. de La. 
Versailles, 225 
Versine, 236 
Verteuil, 180-2, 190-2 
Vertus, Charles, Comte de, 4 
Vic, treaty signed at, 139 
Vieuville, Hotel de la, 12 
Vieuville, La, 214, 217, 219 
Vigean, Mme. de, 246 
Vignier, President, 192, 196 
Villars, Mme. de, 31 
Ville, M. de la, 140, 210-13, 214, 

219 
Villelongue, 90 
Villepreux, 40 
Vincennes fortress, 96, 100, 109, 

113, 136, 247, 257, 259, 284, 

289 
Viole, President de, 298 

Wight, Isle of, Mme. de Chevreuse 

in, 256-7 
Women, Spanish, Mazarin on, 

238-9 

Zamet, M., 35 



THE END 



Richard Clay &" Sons, Limited, London and B74ngay. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



019 620 121 A 




